Mass Effect: New Rising (John Shepard Edition) Under special hiatus
by gabeluna27
Summary: *06/13/2016 - special author's hiatus update!* Click here to read more about the exciting news on what's coming up for Mass Effect: New Rising next year!
1. The Shepard

**Special hiatus note by author:**

_Mass Effect: New Rising_ is a fandom multi-series crossover novel currently still being written with published on this website: . It was to continue the stories of both my planned personal male and female Commander Shepards before the distant sequel: _Mass Effect: Andromeda_. It is to be crossed over with series that particularly have a focus on alien life and races into them such as _Star Trek_, _Aliens vs. Predator_, _Halo_, _and many more_. As of 06/12/2016, a long hiatus is carried out until mid-2017. I plan to reincarnate this story into a _whole_ new and exciting level.

In recent years, I've been seeing more films and video games that I believe would fit into the same timeline as Mass Effect, pushing the limit of series of over the number 40.

_Potential questions_

**1.** Will _Mass Effect: New Rising_ be completed in the future in general?

Yes. _Mass Effect: New Rising_ for both Shepards will be completed in the future. But when exactly, I can't be entirely sure. It could be five years from now, ten years from now, twenty years from now. I've worked so hard to push this story aside for the favor of others, and my ambition for the story is this: "_If I start it, I will find ways to finish it because I love_

what I do for these stories and I will do whatever it takes to complete it with that same faith I used to outline and publish the projects from the start."

**2.** What kinds of new updates will there be in _Mass Effect: New Rising_?

The story will have few new imputed universes/series mixed with in the _Mass Effect_ timeline. Two examples are _Subnautica_ and _This Island Earth_. One new planned imputed universes/series and few already post-added series listed into the story would be parallel universes from the universe of the _Mass Effect_ timeline. Some content from some of those series would have a similar connection to one another such as the _Doctor Who_ universe or the _Men in Black_ Universe.

The story will also go through some expecting theoretic drastic alterations to not only make it cannon like the the official works, but will also include new characters on the "already" posted chapters, one of which would play an important role to _Galaxina_ (a character from the Japanese anime television series: _Sonic X_).

I can assure to you all that when the hiatus ends, you will read along with new and exiting stiff that I've been planning and outlining since for past three years from now. Spelling corrections on already-posted-chapters will also be included.

**3.** Why am I writing this story all in all?

It's because before I even got into _Mass Effect_, I started seeing how _Mass Effect_ 3 is often panned for certain stuff and has become a subject for those said watching the gameplay walkthroughs from the first to last game, I processed as to how they were made and that negative energy that's gotten into my mind from all the stuff I've read and heard online and the made up factual-errors and claims I've read by others after months for desperately trying to find the correct official answers, I understood them and adapted my ways of thinking.

Why is that? Maybe, and this is just a theory of mine, my autism has helped me get across all of those negative boundaries to make this "soon to be" epic story for both my Shepards. Yes, I may not often look, walk, talk, or act like it, but I _am_ autistic. Those who are under the autistic disorder may often be considered as "too different" to make good and wonderful changes in the world. But, obviously this statement isn't true. I may be very young and under the Asperger syndrome, but I can think, layout, process, and write down the ideas of almost every little detail that I do for certain stories I come up with for fun to make them good.

I am not writing this fandom story because I felt like I was forced to do something for my Shepards, or went on to oppose the official works which is absolutely wrong for me. It's because I loved the idea of expanding them to share my ideas and explanations into the light, and the most obvious reason of them all is because: I _can_ do it.

Thank you for your consideration and expect some exciting updates for _Mass Effect: New Rising _starting in 2017 sometime after the release of _Mass Effect: Andromeda_.

**(****gabeluna27****)**

Here is a list of all the current universes/series I'm mixing my story with:

(1) Mass Effect (2) Sonic the Hedgehog (3) AVP 'Alien' vs 'Predator' (4) Dune (5) Darwin IV (6) War of the Worlds '2005' (7) Avatar (8) Buzz Lightyear (9) Evolution '2001' (10) Zathura (11) Doctor Who (12) Star Trek (13) Stargate (14) Star Wars (15) Apollo 18 (16) Cowboys &amp; Aliens (17) Enemy Mine (18) Close Encounters of the Third Kind (19) Lost Planet (20) Independence Day (21) The Chronicles of Riddick (22) Extraterrestrial 'Nat Geo' (23) Lilo and Stitch (24) Dark Star (25) Super 8 (26) Men in Black (27) Battleship (28) Outlander (29) Europa Report(30) Into the Universe (31) Galaxy Quest (32) Warning from Space (33) Lost Tapes 'ANML' (34) E.T. (35) District 9 (36) Hunter Prey (37) The Last Days on Mars (38) Solaris (39) Halo (40) Earth to Echo

_Here is a list of all the universes/series I'm mixing my story with:_

_(1)__** Mass Effect**__ (2) __**Sonic the Hedgehog**__ (3) __**AVP **__'Alien' vs 'Predator' (4) __**Dune**__ (5) __**Darwin IV**__ (6) __**War of the Worlds**__ '2005' (7) __**Avatar **__(8) __**Buzz Lightyear **__(9) __**Evolution **__'2001' (10)__**Zathura **__(11) __**Doctor Who**__ (12) __**Star Trek**__ (13) __**Stargate **__(14)__** Star Wars**__ (15) __**Apollo 18**__ (16) __**Cowboys &amp; Aliens**__ (17) __**Enemy Mine **__(18) __**Close Encounters of the Third Kind**__ (19) __**Lost Planet**__ (20) __**Independence Day**__ (21) __**The Chronicles of Riddick**__ (22) __**Extraterrestrial **__'Nat Geo' (23) __**Lilo and Stitch**__ (24) __**Dark Star **__(25) __**Super 8**__ (26) __**Men in Black **__(27) __**Battleship **__(28)__**Outlander **__(29)__** Europa Report**__(30)__** Into the Universe **__(31) __**Galaxy Quest **_(32)_**Warning from Space **__(33) __**Lost Tapes**__ 'ANML' _(34)_** E.T. **__(35) __**District 9**__ (36) __**Hunter Prey **__(37) __**The Last Days on Mars**__ (38) __**Solaris**__ (39) __**Halo**__ (40) __**Earth to Echo**_

* * *

**Episode 1:**

**The Shepard**

"_**Year 2009, Earth time…"**_

Stars, billions of stars flickering in the bright skies of the '_Milky Way Galaxy_'; a massive barred spiral world under a continuous extinction cycle of advanced space-faring organic races being converted into synthetic-organic ships, known as the _Reapers_. They were designed by an artificial intelligence created by an apex race called the _Leviathans_ billions of years ago, when the Earth was still young. With that, the first reaper gave rise by the essence of the leviathans and entire Reaper race was born. Previously, the Reapers have harvested the most notable ancient galaxy-wide spread empire 50,000 years ago, the _Protheans_. Now the remains of that empire are their artifacts, ruins and technology, in which one day will give humankind their biggest leap in space-faring history that is '_Mass Effect_'.

**. . . . . . . . . . . .**

In the Milky Way, stars glitter across every direction of the galaxy. Flares erupt from the surface of a nearby solar analog star. Interstellar clouds called nebulas fuse together ionized gases to generate new stars. An icy comet passes by a sun-like star as it displays a visible dust trail. In an asteroid belt, a large asteroid crashes on to another causing both of them to become smaller space chunks. A ring of small cosmic rocks and ice particles orbit a Saturn-like gas giant. A nearby black hole absorbs all of the light and gravity around it's horizon with no way of escaping it.

But this galaxy has much more than there is to it.

Among the stars of an uncharted sector of the galaxy, is an interstellar space colony, cruising through empty space. It belongs to a dying race that has been driven into exile when their planet was attacked by a hostile race and their homeworld's heart, the _planet egg_, has been purged by a cyborg race of machines which call themselves, _Metarex_.

No sooner enough, guided missiles blow up the upper hull of the ship.*KABOOSHM!* An enormous golden armored crustacean shaped-like ship comes to closer range to the colony. A Metarex warship is attacking! The interstellar colony suffers high catastrophic damage from the ship's rockets. A small tail of white light flares out of the colony's hanger launching to the planet Mobius, the homeworld of the anthropomorphic animals, aka: the '_Mobians_'. The light is actually a small escape pod. One of the colonists has escaped the destruction of the space colony.

As the Metarex continues to bombard the colony to total destruction, another colonist barely escapes into another vessel, and launches out of the nearly ravaged hanger. The pod however, is severely damaged.

Moments later, it shoots straight to a giant interstellar transit devise at full speed.

It is a _Mass Relay_, built by the Reapers for galactic civilizations to accelerate across the galaxy, shortening the time between the harvests. As the vessel gets closer, it transits an amount of mass energy into the devise's approach corridor. Suddenly, the escape pod is propelled across space with tremendous force, bringing its location to another relay thousands of light years away. *TISUUUM!*

Now in a different location of the galaxy, the vessel continues to spring straight forward. It hits and shatters a small piece of space junk, and loses control. _*BANG-KIRACK!*_ The colonist inside is out cold by the impact. After several violent seconds, it enters the thin atmosphere of an uncharted moon of a Jupiter-like gas giant. *SHABOOM!* The vessel takes impact on the moon's surface, cratering itself deep into a geothermal tunnel system. Eventually, its power dies off and everything becomes silent and calm.

**. . . . . . . . . . . .**

"_**One hundred and sixty-seven earth years later…"**_

In the year 2186, the Reapers have returned to the galaxy to harvest the civilizations of humanity and every other advanced organic race in this cycle. But ultimately, they and their _synthetic-organic creatures (husks)_ were destroyed by a superweapon that was planned millions of years before, now finished to end the harvest of all organic life once and for all. It was called, the _Crucible_. The cycle has come to an end, thanks to one particular human soldier, spectre, hero, and legend of the Milky Way Galaxy. That human's name is no other than, _Commander 'John' Shepard_.

**. . . . . . . . . . . .**

In the ruins of the _Citadel_ station and the Crucible, lies the seemingly lifeless body of the commander who activated the Crucible. Few moments later, his consciousness returns with a deep breath.

_*Breath… Cough!*_ Shepard slowly lifts his sore head off the ground. _*Cough!*_ He coughs amongst his wheezing. His body was numb and stings in pain at the same time. Shepard places his head back down.

Exhausted, injured, burned and weaken from a Reaper's surprise attack and the explosion of the Crucible, Shepard's weak eyes that are barley open fill up with a bright intense light, not being able to fully see what is left of the _Citadel _that surrounds him, orbiting just above the Earth. He and his friend, _David Anderson_ made it to the station at the same time _Harbinger_, the overlord of the Reapers, and the first Reaper ever created by the leviathans' essence, attacked them. Anderson made it to the station's conduit first, but Shepard was blasted by one of Harbinger's beams. But remarkably, Shepard survived. Unfortunately, he suffered from a combination shock and blood loss shortly after his confrontation with an indoctrinated human secretive known as the _Illusive Man_. The _Catalyst_, the intelligence the leviathans built and Reapers' source of their harvesting purpose, picked up Shepard and slowly recovered his body from his loss of blood. But it didn't heal his body entirely, but just enough to keep him alive and to allow the commander to trigger the Crucible and end its purpose to preserve life on that very hour.

When the intelligence studied Shepard while healing his nearly dead body, it chose to represent itself as a transparent form of a young boy Shepard saw get killed while he was escaping Vancouver and the Earth on the SSV Normandy SR-2 starship, almost as if he was looking at a ghost or a god of the child. But now, the intelligence is no more since the blast of the Crucible not only destroyed the Reapers and their husks, but to every synthetic life form in the galaxy. The Catalyst was one of those AIs to perish from this destruction event.

About forty-six seconds after Shepard regains his consciousness, he could barely make out the rumbling sound of an Alliance shuttle's engine just above him. It lands in a secured location of the citadel ruins the artificial atmosphere surrounds. A rescue team of five is dispatched from their drop point, along with a tamed black and white colored _varren _before the shuttle takes off back into the sky.

"Hello!" the team's commando and commander calls out at the gloomy, ruined station that domes him and his team. "Is there anyone alive out there!?" he calls again, echoing through the still, mucky air like a song.

Two teammates pull out a big chunk of rubble off of a body of a person, a human civilian. It was a poignant feeling that they felt in their stomachs. In fact, all of them have been experiencing such touching and stressful emotions all day looking for survivors (which they've found some) and the body of the still MIA Commander Shepard. No one has seen or heard from him since the crucible docked in place. The top Alliance Navy Admiral, _Steven Hackett_, spares no expanse when it comes to Shepard.

The commando was the most exhausted of the five, but he tries to keep it aside and keeps his focus on the mission itself.

The varren scouts ahead of its owner's team, prowling the vicinity like a rescue dog. It smells a stench that only the tamed alien hound can smell, coming from Shepard's location. *GLURGARGH!* It lets out a grumbling bark, attracting the rescue team's attention. The varren runs forward, following the commander's fresh blood scent, with the team proceeding on its tail and passing by one of the citadel's _mysterious keepers_ which is dragging a bloodied human corps along the ground.

"Squad 6, follow the varren! Looks like _Scorcher_ is really on to something today." says the commando.

Shepard is too unaware to notice his wounds are starting to bleed again. His blood loss has returned. The partially sealed wounds on his body the Catalyst has healed have opened again by the heat and flames of the Crucible's explosion. Shepard, losing a lot of blood, starts to have very light breaths by every second and his eyes are shut firmly and unable to reopen them. _Scorcher_, the tamed varren was just right next to him to his left. It lets out a loud wail and its owner's team arrives to see what it has found.

"We've got a live one here! Repeat, we've got a live one!" exclaims the commando. After fighting their way through the uneven rubble, the rescue squad swoops just in time to treat the dying commander. But Shepard is just moments before fully succumbing to his shock.

"Good boy." the Alliance commando said to Scorcher, as he kneels down with an omni-tool and starts sealing Shepard's wounds with medi-gel. But it suddenly runs out after two in a halve seconds since it was used for more than one wounded survivor they found.

"Damn it!" the commando cursed in frustration, banging his omni-tool at the same time.

"Tyler. Medi-gel isn't going to be enough. We need to use something else." One of the soldiers says to the commando.

"No time! Get him out of this goddamn mess, _now_!" Tyler shouts back. The team helps the dying commander out of the rubble to safety. Shepard tries to hold back his groans and yelps of pain and bears his teeth as the rescue squad excavates him out of his spot.

A female vanguard reaches her right hand to the loosened N7 dog tag on the commander's chest and soon enough finds out who this man is.

"_Oh my god…"_ the vanguard whispered to herself. "It's _Commander Shepard_!" she exclaims.

"I'll be damned!" A male Alliance soldier says in reply and shock.

The commando immediately contacts Hackett. "Admiral Hackett, this is Lt. Tyler with the Logan Evacuation Squad no. 6. We have just found Commander Shepard and he is alive! Repeat, Shepard is alive but he is in need of critical medical treatment! We need an immediate med-evacuation ASAP!"

At the same time Tyler contacts Admiral Hackett, Shepard's vision opens up again in his sickly, blurry eyes, and catches a glimpse of a dark figure of a right hand of the female vanguard reaching out for him, just before his consciousness dims all the way into darkness.

**. . . . . . . . . . . .**

_*Dream flashback*_

_In 2183, Commander Shepard was a soldier of the Systems Alliance N7 Special Forces. He was born on Earth in 2154, but was orphaned as an infant and raised on the streets, learned to look after himself. Sometime after he joined the Alliance at eighteen, his unit was slaughtered by a thresher maw on the planet, Akuze. Shepard was the only one who survived this incident. Afterwards, he was assigned on the SSV Normandy as an 'Executive Officer'. After finding a Prothean beacon on Eden Prime, his quest has changed into stopping a rouge indoctrinated turian spectre named Saren Arterius. Shepard becomes the first human spectre by the Citadel Council and the captain of the SSV Normandy. Saren's geth forces attacked the Citadel along with the Reaper vanguard, Sovereign. Commander Shepard defeats both adversaries and becomes the hero of the Citadel. He knows the Reapers will return to the galaxy one day, and goes out to find a way to stop them..._

Shepard's consciousness returns in a flash when he feels a harsh and painful tug on his arm. He yelped out, but he couldn't open or see with his own eyes to whomever has tugged on him. The darkness has consumed him big time. Still, he could feel the grasps of multiple hands tugging and patting all over him and he can barely hear the calls of those people behind the continuous unbearable ring in his head.

He desperately tries to open his eyes to open to view the chaos around him. When he did, a bright light, followed by three dark shadow figures behind it. Immediately, Shepard closes his eyes. Intense agony and disorientation washes over him. He felt his forehead throb back violently to the right, hitting the cold steal underneath him.

"Goddamn it!" a male voice called out, teasing Shepard's now clear hearing. "Where's the medigel!?"

A familiar voice of one of the rescue soldiers responds, "We have used all of it! This bleeding will never stop!" he sounded panicked.

Hearing those words, Shepard's eye open again at the exact time, behind his blurred vision, he forces his free arm to thrash out. A wave of pain rips through his arm's bones and makes contact with another's arm with a loud hit.

"Ahh!" the person cried out.

"Hold him still! A female's voice called out.

Closing his eyes shut and feeling his forehead tens up with agony, the picture of a woman in a purple enviro-suit and pale white eyes penetrating through the visor teases his memory. He felt his weakened lips open up, trying to say out her name, but all that came was a small squeal, as he opens his blurry eyes again. His throat was swollen tight to speak out.

"Just sit tight Commander. You're gonna be alright." the same female voice spoke to him.

Shepard wanted to yell out, but a loud wheeze is all what escaped from his throat. Slowly, his consciousness fades away once again, just when he feels a breathing mask strapping around him.

_A month later, the Normandy was ambushed by an unidentified cruiser and Shepard's pressure seals in his suit become compromised in the process, suffocating himself to his death in outer space. Two years after, Shepard was revived synthetically and organically by the Lazarus Project, led by the pro-human survivalist and terrorist organization, 'Cerberus'. Shepard soon uses the help of Cerberus as well as some old and new allies to stop a greater threat towards humanity: the Collectors (Genetic altered mutated descendants of the Protheans repurposed and enslaved by the Reapers). He quickly becomes the captain of the newly Normandy SR-2 (a successor ship to the SR-1) as well as falling in love with a young quarian named Tali'Zorah, an old friend who has traveled with him to stop Saren two years ago. The mission of stopping the collectors and saving humanity was a success. The Collector base, located at the galactic core was destroyed, and Cerberus got a higher reputation of protecting mankind across the galaxy. Everyone during that suicide mission (including the personnel of the SR-2) has survived. Soon afterwards, Shepard destroys the Bahak system of Batarian space to prevent the Reapers from using a short cut to the galaxy, but is placed under arrest by the Systems Alliance to be tried..._

The voices were weak but not silent. All around him was nothing but pitch blackness. He was for sure he was safe and secured, but it wasn't too quiet. The faint and muffled voices make their way through his ears. One of the first things Shepard feels was the beating in his chest. His heart was pumping for life. He tried to inhale a deep breath, but his begging lungs hurt more when he did, but there was still some of that fresh, clean air he had taken.

A series of tingling activity comes all around him. Shepard can feel himself twitching an arm, but he couldn't lift it. His muscles are weak but they weren't ready to let himself down. There was no way. His eyes were sealed shut, but he forces himself to open them up. They couldn't. Not with out the help of a soft familiar voice behind the couple others...

"_Shepard?_"

The sound of the voices brings life to his eyes. A bright white blur pierces and slices through the darkness. They closed again, but only allowing them to open a second time. The blur in his vision was intense, slowly coming back to focus. He moves his extremely soar skull to the side, then he sees a dark violate figure towering above. Half delirious from the unmistakable shape before him, he opens his lips to speak. But all that came out was a soft moan. His throat was still soar, and a there was a tub in his throat.

The other voices were speaking to him, but he ignored them. The female voice that just talked to him was the only one he was centered at. A three fingered hand was gently placed on Shepard's left shoulder. A wave of heat and relief washes over him and down his spine when he felt it, like ripples on a lake fading away in the smooth surface.

"_Mmmh!_" A dull moan escaped from his barren throat by the touch.

"_You're gonna be alright Shepard. I'm here with you._" There was clarity in his ears to be able to hear the same familiar woman's voice comforting him. When her hand left his shoulder, he tried to move, to be able to reach for it again. But the pain and aches all over him were too unbarring for Shepard to handle. He felt as if he were once again being crushed by the rubble at the Citadel. "_Just rest now Shepard._" the same voice still spoke to him, trying to sound as comfortable as possible.

After that, he arches his aching skull back up, his eyes looking at another figure that was with him in his vision. The voice of the figure was soothing but serious at the same time. The voice was unfamiliar, but he can tell the nurse's voice was trying to get him to relax. Half delirious from the the stress of his aching self and the agony, he couldn't pay attention to the nurse's words and tries to haul himself up half intentionally and unintentionally. But he was halted by another nurse's hand that was place directly on his forehead, which prompted Shepard to lay back down against the soft mattress below him. With his eyes closed, he can feel the stress loosening up as the nurses did they'er jobs to keep him at a stable state.

Shepard's eyes open again, more relaxed this time but with blurred vision. And in almost an instant, the consciousness keeping him barely awake drops out for one last time into nothing but darkness.

_Six month later, the Reapers have finally returned to the galaxy, starting their harvest of all advanced spacefaring organic life. Shepard escapes on the Alliance improved SSV Normandy SR-2, but spots a young boy he couldn't save when he had the chance earlier escaping on a shuttle and vaporized by a reaper destroyer. Shepard starts to have continuous vivid nightmares about losing the kid in flames that haunts his dreams, guilty of himself for not saving a life of the next generation. Traveling across the galaxy and gathering up war assets from the other races against the Reapers, Commander Shepard finds a live Prothean under stasis quarantine (Javik), cures the Genophage on Tuchunka, makes a truce between the Quarians and the Geth, duels with a xenophobic clone of himself on the Normandy above the Citadel, retake the station 'Omega' from General Petrovsky (whom which to Shepard decides to let go and to join the Alliance), discover the intelligence's creators (the Leviathans and their progeny), encounter many Cerberus operatives who seek to control the Reapers, and much more during his travels. With the Cerberus base shut down, the idea of Cerberus continues on by the Illusive Man, and the final assault of the galaxy takes place at the sol system to retake the Earth, and to save the Milky Way. Harbinger, the mastermind of the Reapers arrives to Earth in what is left of London. Shepard's team mates, Tali and Garrus become injured when the six eyed Reaper attacks during their final push to the conduit. Shepard says what would be his last goodbye to his girlfriend before forcing both her and Garrus to retreat back to the safety of Normandy, and before Harbinger mortally wounds the commander. Shepard reaches the Citadel's conduit and is confronted by the Illusive Man. He kills the indoctrinated Cerberus leader by shooting him in the stomach as the Illusive Man starts to charge at the commander, claiming that he (the Illusive Man) is the pinnacle of Humanity. After the Crucible docks in the center of the station, Shepard is found by the Catalyst and reveals the Reapers' purpose of their harvests. Out of all the three options it gives out to Shepard to end its purpose (Destroy, Control and Synthesis), the commander chooses to destroy the Reapers once and for all. He believed destroying the Reapers was the only way to save the galaxy. With that, Shepard shoots a key energy tube for the Crucible to fire a wave of negative energy to all synthetic beings in the galaxy. He is caught by the explosion and everything goes from black to white in his vision!_

_*End of dream flashback…*_

**. . . . . . . . . . . .**

_*Gasps!* _Shepard flicks his blue eyes wide open in a flash with immediate clarity, gasping at the exact time, waking up from his dream of his past flashbacks. His panting settles down and a bright light blurs his eyes. His vision quickly becomes clear for him to see. He finds himself resting on his backside in a cot, in a patient room of an Alliance hospital, and most of all, he is somehow _still alive_. His head and back were rested on a pillow with half of the cot levitated a little and the covers over his feet to his waist. Shepard is no longer in his disrupted N7 military uniform, but in a light blue hospital gown, with a set of bandages patched over both of his arms and on his head. His burns are nearly healed, but he still has several bruises and prickles of soreness around his body.

To his right, he spots a small table with a terminal on top of it. The visible words were scrolling upwards, and when he squints his eyes, Shepard can see those words are actually_'get well'_ notes signed by many of his friends he knew. Next to the terminal to the right is one of his N7 helmets with a couple flower bunches from an undisturbed patch on Earth in front of it, to honor his unknown but heroic actions of stopping the Reaper threat.

After scanning his right side direction and himself, Shepard hears some snoring coming from his other left side. Someone is sleeping next to him. He turns his head to his left, and there, sitting on a chair with the arms placed on the safety rail and the head resting before them is a female _quarian_. This is _Tali'Zorah vas Normandy Nar Rayya_, one of Shepard's team mates as well as his beloved girlfriend. Smiling slightly, he puts both of his hands on top of Tali's.

"Hey." Shepard quietly speaks to her at the same time he realizes his throat lacked moisture, but he didn't care, now that he sees his lover sleeping right next to him. The young quarian wakes up in confusion. Behind her mask, Tali can see her injured human boyfriend, wide awake, looking at her eye to eye. Her face widens in surprise.

"SHEPARD!" Tali exclaims in great astonishment. She immediately leaps out of her seat with her arms extended and locks them around Shepard, hugging him.

"Ahgh!" Shepard grunts in pain the second he is grasped by Tali. But despite the pain, he hugs his quarian girlfriend back.

"I thought I had lost you again!" she spoke through her crying of joy.

"I am never lost without you." Shepard replied back to her.

Tali looks right into his eyes and speaks, "Oh keelah, Shepard... _*Sniff*_ You came back for me!" she cried.

The commander gently squeezed her right hand saying: "I came back because of you." Shepard takes a long pause before speaking again. "From Hell and there... you made everything worth it." He places his right hand on Tali's helmet. "You brought me peace, joy, and love, more than anyone else I ever met in my life. I survived because of you."

Tali's bioluminescent eyes well up with tears. She removes her mask with a light hiss of air escaping from it,*hiss*, and placed it beside Shepard's left. "I-I love you… Shepard." She managed to croak out at the same time more glittering tears drop from her eyes, down to her cheeks of her pale lavender human-like face.

Tali leans forward and presses her lips onto Shepard's giving him a long and slow passionate kiss while both of their hands held and caressed each other's faces. "Mmmhh" She lets out a soft, faint moan during this tender moment. Tali pulls away from Shepard's lips eleven seconds later and stares back into his blue eyes.

"I love you to, Tali'Zorah vas Normandy." Shepard replies to her, smiling.

Soon enough, the doorway slips open and walking inside the room is an ex-Cerberus officer, _Miranda Lawson_, as well as a former C-Sec turian officer, _Garrus Vakarian_.

"Shepard! You're awake." Garrus said with enthusiasm in his voice.

Shepard soon becomes exited. "Garrus, Miranda!" He is surprised to see the two recognizable faces of his two friends walking in the room and he tries to position himself to sit up. But as he does so, a sharp pain runs through his lumbar vertebrae. "Ow!" Shepard yells out, holding his spine and collapses back against the pillow, *Thump!*.

Miranda walks over to Shepard, next to Tali. "Try not to get so eager with yourself, Commander. You're still in bad condition." she informed him. "You were very lucky the _Sixth Rescue Squad_ found you somewhere on the Citadel eighteen days ago. You were pretty ripped up when they retrieved you."

Shepard smiles and replies to her, "I might have to owe you for bringing me back twice then. Huh?" Miranda giggles at his comment.

When the Sixth Logan Rescue team recovered Shepard from the Heart of the Citadel, he was brought back to Earth to a hospital that was still in good shape in New York for better medical treatment. A week and a half later when the better doctors arrived at the Sol system, he was transferred back to the SSV Logan just four days earlier from this current day for his final stage of recovery from his wounds, infections, and his comatose state. The rest of Shepard's teammates of the Normandy remained back on Earth in New York to help with any survivors they could find and assist in what rebuilding they could. The Logan now is just at Earth's orbit, and it will stay there until the mass relay network is beginning to come back online.

Normally, the destruction of a mass relay destroys an entire solar system. But the crucible's destructive wave changed that. Instead of completely destroying them to devastate the star systems, the mass relays were severely damaged just like the Citadel. But eventually, as time passes, they will all be repaired; minus both the _Omega 4 relay_ which was deemed too dangerous and the _Alpha Relay_ of Batarian Space that was sacrificed to delay the Reaper's arrival. The exact true science of the Crucible's energy is unknown to everyone in the galaxy because it was the first and only time in millions of years and to infinity into the future of the universe to be fully constructed. But the galaxy would have lost without it if it weren't for Shepard's heroism.

Shepard's head turns to Garrus. "Did we…?" he asked.

"We did it, Shepard. It's all over." the scarred face turian replied. "Unfortunately, we lost _EDI_ in the process. Much to Joker's misery." he continued with concern in his voice for the pain of one of their friends, _Joker_. Some who stayed in the SSV Normandy tried to salvage any possibilities of the ship's AI, EDI. So far, there has been no success, but they and Miranda keep trying their best.

The guilt in Shepard crashes upon himself. He had done what he did to end this war, but it was

Shepard though doesn't want to admit it. Friends and other innocent lives of any race die all around him, and all that does is multiply his guilt and hatred for his actions.

Miranda walks over to Shepard after picking up a tiny flashlight. "Hold still Commander." She leans in front of him, holding the light against his cheeks and using two of her fingers to stretch the skin, to reveal his cybernetic implants within the scars. When Cerberus obtained Shepard's clinically brain dead body from an asari friend of Shepard named_Liara T'Soni_, after the Collectors destroyed the first Normandy, they imported synthetic implants to rebuild him from the dead. Now, most of them are replaced by newer ones, since the wave of the Crucible crippled _everything_ that was synthetic.

"Your synthetic implants were worn out when the Logan's rescue team found you. We were surprised that you survived that long without them." Miranda said. She puts away her flash light and steps aside to descend to the door.

"In any case, you will stay here for just a few more days before you're back on your feet. Admiral Hackett is expecting you to make a full recovery, by the way." Miranda turns to Tali. "I apologize, Tali, but he won't be up for another week or so." she said to the young quarian.

"I understand, Miranda. Thank you… for saving his life… again." Tali replied with a mixture of relief and sorrow.

Miranda smiles, places her right hand on her hips and arches them to her right, admiring Tali's human-like face, something she hasn't seen for herself before about Tali. "You look better without the helmet, by the way."

Tali just smiles back with a giggle, holding her right hand to the side of her chin.

The ex-Cerberus officer looks back at the commander. "Just stay put, commander. I'll be right back with you." With that, Miranda turns and walks out of the room. The doors close behind her with a *ping*.

Garrus turns to Shepard. "I should go to. A team is wating for me back on Earth. I'll see you later, Shepard." The turian stands up from his seat. "Hope you get well soon. Give me a call when you do." Garrus exits out the door, leaving just the commander and the quarian inside the quiet and calm patient room. Shepard turns to Tali.

"Did I promise I will come back?" he asked. Tears began to build up once again in Tali's glowing eyes.

"Yes." she replies. Shepard gives a small grin to her with pride in his big heart.

**. . . . . . . . . . . .**

A week and six days have passed. Commander Shepard has finally made a complete recovery. He and the crew of the Normandy SR-2 arrive at the bridge of the _SSV Logan_,_flagship of the Third Fleet_ for an awards ceremony presided by _Admiral Hackett_ himself.

"I am happy to report that absolutely _all_ living traces of the Reaper menace have now been eradicated!" says a Canadian reporter. "Thanks to _'Project Crucible'_, found by our legendary hero of humanity and his team on the very same planet (_Mars_) humankind discovered the physics of FTL! Let me introduce 'Commander Shepard' and the crew of the SSV Normandy SR-2! The _bane of the Reapers_ and _pinnacle of the galaxy_ has returned to tell his tale!"

Shepard and his team of the Normandy walk down the large hall leading to the base of the bridge where Hackett can award them. The audiences from both directions and floor levels give a cheerful applause as the bane of the Reapers walks straight forward. The crowd is mostly human, but there were a few other races with them such as _asari_, _turian_,_salarian_, _batarian_, _krogan_, _quarian_, and even a couple of _awakened collectors_. The rest of the Normandy's crew, including _Dr. Chakwas_, _Samantha Traynor_,_ Kenneth Donnelly_,_Gabriella Daniels_,_ Greg _Adams, and _Diana Allers_ were all present within the crowd. Friends who have traveled with Shepard stop the collector threat with Cerberus were also present in the crowd, (_Miranda_, _Grunt_, _Kasumi_, _Zaeed_, _Samara_, _Jack_, _Kelly_, _Gardner_ and _Jacob_).

When Shepard walks up the steps to _Steven Hackett_, both him and Hackett saluted each other.

"Commander Shepard, it is a pleasure to have you back." Hackett spoke.

_Admiral Nitesh Singh_, the commander of the SSV Logan, steps up next to Hackett's right, holding a box containing nine golden Alliance decorations. They were circular with an '_A_' shaped logo on it with stars in between the upside down 'V'. Hackett picks up the first one to the right.

"For your service of the Systems Alliance N7 Army forces, being the first human spectre elected by the Citadel Council, facing every impossible odd in the galaxy, and being the_Bane of the Collectors, the Illusive Man, and the Reapers_, you and your crew deserve these '_Systems Alliance Badges of Bravery_'." In the middle of his speech, Hackett pins the badge on Shepard's chest pocket of his uniform. Afterwards, they both saluted each other. Each time Hackett pins a decoration and salutes back to that person, the crowd around the bridge give a round of applause. Shepard steps back the right for his squad mates to be awarded for their actions against the Reapers. _Ashley Williams_ steps up after Shepard.

"_Lieutenant Commander Williams_, as a sole survivor on _Eden Prime_, volunteer of the salarian operation on _Virmire_, and the second human spectre who saved the Council from Udina's betrayal, your honorable motives have replaced that of your _grandfather's_ (_General Williams_) disgraceful performance in Alliance history; the one who surrendered the Shanxi's garrison during the _First Contact War_. The Alliance Navy has welcomed your family back to the highest rank of military service." Hackett pins the badge just above Ashley's chest on her indigo blue coat during his speech. She and Hackett saluted before stepping next to Shepard to allow the next squad mate to be awarded. _Tali'Zorah_ was next.

"_Tali'Zorah vas Normandy_, your pilgrimage has given us solid proof of Saren's betrayal to the Council and a hint of the Reapers' existence. Without that salvaged information of yours, the galaxy itself would have never become this prepared against the Reapers, and their ruthless forces. In the future, both you and Commander Shepard will be pronounced as _man and wife of Rannoch_. _Keelah se'lai_; by the homeworld I hope to see one day." The badge Hackett held had a magnet that will stick onto Tali's right hood pin, just above her chest. And when it did with a flash of blue light, she and Hackett saluted during his last sentence of his speech to Tali. The next one up was _Garrus_.

"_Garrus Vakarian_, your _C-Sec _and _archangel_ experience has reflected great military credit upon Shepard's squad and the defenses of _Palaven_. Every turian has owed you their gratitude for saving their homeworld." The badge is magnetized on Garrus' soldier armor with a flash of light by Hackett. After saluting each other, the asari, _Liara T'Soni_ was next to step up.

"_Doctor T'Soni_, as the current _Shadow Broker_ of the galaxy, your dossiers have given us the ancient blue prints of the prothean superweapon that awarded us the achievement of triumph over the Reapers. We may never know its true origin, but its legacy will forever be the symbol of destroying the greatest enemy the galaxy has ever faced for ages." Hackett pins her badge on the left of Liara's Shadow Broker uniform. Afterwards, both Hackett and the asari saluted each other. _Steve Cortez_ was next after Liara.

"_Lieutenant Cortez_, your bravery to protect Shepard from aerial forces involved a great inner spirit. You followed what your heart said to do to keep the commander and his team alive during the final stand for Earth and the galaxy." Although Cortez was proud for his award badge being pinned on his vest for his bravery on his attempts to secure Shepard from the _harvester husks_, he suddenly had a memory flash back when his husband, _Robert_ was abducted by the Collectors just a year ago. He couldn't save him, but he did save the commander's life from the Reaper forces that were inbound when Shepard was ordered to destroy a _Reaper AA Hades Cannon_. Despite his emotional inner feelings, he and Hackett saluted each other and steps aside for the pilot of the Normandy, _Joker_, to step up after him.

"_Lieutenant Jeff Moreau_, from the start of being the pilot of the SR-1 and destroying Sovereign at the Citadel, to being the pilot of the SR-2, you have ranked yourself as being the one of the top pilots the Alliance could ever have. You have flown Commander Shepard and his team system by system, relay by relay, guiding him to some most highly impossible and suicidal odds the Alliance and the Council could not stand up for, such as _Ilos_ and the _Omega 4 Relay_." Joker's badge is pined on the left of his leather vest. He was proud of himself for the award Hackett has offered him for his honorable service with the commander. But deep inside, however, he felt defeated, mourning for the loss of EDI, because of Shepard's unwanted motives while choosing to eliminate the Reaper threat from the face of the Milky Way. Hopes of recovering EDI was over. There is nothing left of her that can be saved, even at Cerberus. The next person up next after he and Hackett saluted was _James Vega_.

"_Lieutenant Commander Vega_, since your bravery and heroism on _Fehl Prime_ against _the Blood Pack_ and _the Collectors_, you have fulfilled your destiny to follow Commander Shepard's path to the end of the war. The N7 Special Forces congrats the second of their best." Hackett pins James' decoration on him. After they salute, James turns his head back to the left of the audience to see his two friends and only survivors of the Collector attack on Fehl Prime applauding for him, _Milque_ and _Treeya the asari_. This is the first James finally accepts his awards, but he still regrets the hundreds of colonist lives he could not save during the Collector attack. One in particular, a little girl named _April_, who still haunts his memory and dreams. The last and final person to step up to be awarded is the last standing Prothean in the universe, _Javik_.

"And last but not least, _Javik_, the last of the _Prothean Empire_ who's vengeance against the Reaper forces has paid off for the future of this galaxy, and for every race that will come after us. Your people shall not be forgotten for their great grants before the start of this war." Hackett magnetizes the badge on Javik's red copper armor. After he and the prothean saluted, Javik doesn't walk to the right with the rest of Shepard's squad. Instead, he hesitates at his spot for a couple seconds and begins to speak.

"In my cycle, we have never had such victory before." Javik started. "But now… the Reapers have been defeated." He turns to face the audience. "The Earth has been rescued and so are the other homeworlds of all of your kind." He expands his arms to the crowd. "We are all alive, and together, we have overturned the Reaper threat for the destiny of your children and your children's children! I was meant to be the voice of my people, and now, I, _Javik_, rule of the _cycle of the primitives_!" Everyone went silent after his speech. "With the assistance of the Commander's faith." Javik added. One person gave a round of applause which is then followed by another, then another, and everyone eventually joined the applause, even Commander Shepard and the rest of his team.

The bridge doors open again. Three bipedal figures have entered the bridge. It's the _Citadel Council_, who miraculously survived the war. The councilors are _Sparatus (the turian)_,_Tevos (the asari)_, and _Valern (the salarian)_. They all step up towards Shepard, who has walked up in front to face the councilors.

**T:** "Commander Shepard, we have gathered here to acknowledge your courageous daring against Cerberus and the Reapers."

**V:** "Millions, if not, billions of lives of the targeted species, including yours and ours have fallen into the cold hands of the Reapers and the Illusive Man. But your heroic efforts against the unimaginable odds have saved the billions of lives of every single existing species in the galaxy."

**S:** "You saved our lives multiple times from the attack of Saren and Sovereign, to Udina's betrayal with Cerberus, all the way to the end of Reaper Invasion. Now, every living live, including ours will owe you our thanks for your actions of stopping the Reapers and Cerberus for eternity. Let's not forget those we knew and loved who have perished before us for their service of this war."

In Shepard's mind, images of those who have died in his watch rush through his vision. And those lives were those from 2183, all the way to the dark days of the Reaper Invasion (_Richard L. Jenkins_, _Kaidan Alenko_, _Charles Pressly_, _Mordin Solus_, _Thane Krios_, _Legion_,_ Nyreen Kandros_, _EDI_, _the young boy from Vancouver_, and his best friend: _David Anderson_).

**T:** "And now, we and Admiral Hackett have round up every corner of the galaxy together to help rebuild everything we know. Our homeworlds, colonies, the mass relays, and the Citadel."

**V:** "Other races who have remained outside of Citadel delegations have also agreed to give us their support in helping to rebuild what was lost from this relentless war; the _Raloi_, the _Sangheili_, the _Vulcans_, and many others."

With the expansion of Hackett's galactic round up, over a dozen of non-citadel races have been rallied together with the citadel races to work as one in rebuilding what was destroyed during the war, and to help expand a _better_ galactic community. Already, as the Council speaks, several Council and non-council species ships are piecing together the mass relay network and the Citadel station, which is just visible outside the Logan's bridge windows.

**S:** "As Bane of the Reapers, Commander Shepard, it is the decision of the Council; you have proven yourself as being a '_Guardian_'of the galaxy. You are now the bodyguard against every galactic threat the galaxy ever has to face on behalf of the Council and the Alliance."

The audience and Shepard's squad gives a round of applause after Sparatus' speech. Commander Shepard has ranked himself as the legendary protector of the galaxy. His heroism legacy will live on in the next several thousand, if not, millions of years into the far distant future, and beyond.

**V:** "And as a reward for your courageous spirit, we would like to award you the '_Helm of Salvation_'."

As Councilor Valern speaks his sentence, the council steps a side letting a _huragok_ hover up the steps of the bridge over to Commander Shepard, holding a black and silver colored breather helmet. Its appearance quality was clear as day, as if it were recently polished, and on the top right side of it is a logo representing the Citadel.

The last time Shepard ever saw a huragok was sometime after he was taken into custody by the Alliance in Vancouver. Now it is presumed deceased by the Reaper forces. This huragok resides on the SSV Logan when the _Sangheili_ (outside of the ongoing _Covenant Remnant_) traded over one to the _Arcturus Station_ to be recruited by Admiral Nitesh Singh to assist in the ship's engineering systems once the Logan's construction was completed. Now it is here to give the commander the _Helm of Salvation_.

Shepard picks up the helmet from the tentacles of the huragok as it hands it over to him. But he hesitates for a moment and looks back at the forerunner creature, which stares back at him blankly. After just a couple seconds time, his tension turns back to the helmet, and eventually… he puts it on with a clicking noise, *click!*.

**. . . . . . . . . . . .**

"_**Four earth years later…"**_

The escape vessel which has escaped the Metarex attack now lays dormant under the uncharted world's surface. The colonist has been under suspended hibernation for one hundred and seventy-one earth years long. A rupture from the moon's geological fault line vibrates the surface. A little tiny loose rock drops onto the tip of the vessel's broadcast antenna. Though such a small impact, it awakens its distress beacon; releasing its radio waves out and beyond the stars of the galaxy, with the colonist still under stasis mode.

**. . . . . . . . . . . .**

"_**Year 2190, four years after the Reaper Invasion…**_

_**With the Reapers gone and the company and idea of Cerberus obliterated, the galaxy has touched up everything that was lost, and numerous races across the galaxy have assisted in expanding the galactic community.**_

_**But there was warning from the intelligence of the Citadel where the peace would one day break apart when the created surpass their creators once again. Only one existing race can fill in the missing link to prevent this extinction cataclysm from taking place again in the galaxy.**_

_**Commander Shepard will be the first to discover it…"**_

**Electronic Arts and gabeluna27 presents…**

**A BioWare multi-universe crossover fan sequel novelization**

**. . . . . . . . . . . .**

**Mass Effect**  
**New Rising**

In the _Serpent Nebula_ cluster, the _SSV Normandy SR-2 _starship soars by the star of the _Widow system_.

"Widow Relay hit commencing ETA one minute, at counting." Joker's voice announces in the Normandy. The crew prepares all the ship's systems for transit.

During the approach of the Widow Relay, Shepard's squadmates tend their time on the Normandy. Javik and Liara T'Soni in the Shadow Broker's room go through their data pads about their coming current priority. Garrus and Steve Cortez finish up a brief conversation in the shuttle bay. Lieutenant Commander Williams and James Vega in the observation port, hold onto each other's shoulders, staring at the colorful gas clouds in the skies outside the window while standing up.

"Mass transmission sequence preparations are connected. All ship systems compromise to secure mode."

The Normandy explodes out of a layer of gases, creating a glittering and cloudy star dust-like vapor trail. The trail swirls like a tail of magic following the ship, but soon fades away.

Commander Shepard walks out of the elevator and into _Dock 2: the Combat Information Center_. He walks up the steps to the map of the Milky Way, where his quarian wife, Tali and their _two children hybrids_ await him. Tali places her left hand on her human husband's right hand as he puts both of his on the rail. The young infant hybrids walk next to their father's legs and look up right at him. Shepard keeps his head straight forward, focused and prepared for a mission Hackett has sent out to him and his friends. Although it isn't, to Shepard, this is like déjà vu of the _Eden Prime excavation mission_ eight years ago.

"Widow Relay's within range. Everyone stand by for approach transmission and hold on to your butts."

The Normandy has reached the now repaired _Widow Relay_, the mass relay of the Widow System.

When the ship gets closer to the core of element zero, a large amount of mass energy is transmitted into the corridor by Joker. "Relay hit in T-minus 5, 4, 3, 2, 1…" Right after the pilot says the count down, the mass relay shoots the Normandy though space instantaneously with a blow of the element zero. *BOOOMMM!*


	2. Distress Signal

**Episode 2:**

**Distress Signal**

Couple relays later, the Normandy has just arrived at the very edge of the _Attican Traverse_ of the _Delta Quaderant_.

"All ship systems are online and we've just cleared the mass relay, now approaching the _Eurna system_." Joker's voice comes out of the speakers of the Normandy.

Shepard stands at his place on the deck of the galaxy map. He has no idea what he's getting himself into this time. It has been four years since the fall of the Reapers, and now, he is recruited back onto the Normandy by Hackett for an urgent mission Shepard has yet to be briefed about. Knowing he might not do this alone, he recruites his team who served the Normandy four years ago back on board the ship, and that also includes his wife, Tali'Zorah/Shepard. It is their children's third birthday today and the family and their friends have celebrated it on the now repaired Citadel, the reason how his crew easily rejoined the Normandy.

Having children is a _major_ accomplishment for both Shepard and Tali, because both their amino acids are completely different from each other. Shepard is _levo-protein based_ and Tali is _dextro-protein based_. Both their genes are too incompatible to each other, so if the two attempted to have natural babies together, their chances of having naturally born children are _0%_ according to the science. But when you have the scientific manipulation knowledge from both _Salarian_ and _Hanar_ scientists, anything was virtually possible. The results, _two healthy fraternal twin hybrids_, both born from Tali's womb from a science manipulation project. It may have been illegal to the galactic community, but it was well worth it if both Shepard and Tali wanted a family, in which they actually did.

The twins are brother and sister, _Karel'Shepard nar Normandy_ and _Rea'Shepard nar Normandy_.

The son, _Karel_, was the first hybrid to be born. His skin color is tan like that of a human's, but with a pinch of pale lavender mixed in. His legs are just like a human's with five digits on each foot, with the second and fourth digit slightly extended. His pupils are black as coal like a human's. He is primarily levo-protein DNA based and has a strong human-like immune system.

The daughter, _Rea_, was the last hybrid to be born. She has pale lavender skin like that of a quarian's, but with a pinch of tan mixed in. Her legs bowed backwards like a quarian's with three digits on each foot. Her pupils are bioluminescent white like a quarian's. She is primarily dextro-protein DNA based and has a weak quarian-like immune system, so she requires a miniature sized enviro-suit.

Equally, the twins both have four digits on each of their hands, pinkish nail colors mixed with human ivory and quarian red, black hair, white scleras and blue irises that glow, human/quarian-like ears that flick, and quarian body patterns on their foreheads, eyelids, necks, torsos, and backs.

"Daddy? Where are we going?" Rea asked curiously through her visor.

"I don't know, sweetie." Shepard replies, smiling at his little birthday girl. He gently pads his left hand onto her head, prompting her to giggle.

Shepard turns to Karel. "Ready for duty Son?" he saluted and asked.

"Yes sir, Daddy!" Karel saluted proudly. He is really overjoyed about boarding the Normandy for the second time in his life, this time, on a real life mission.

Karel's dream is to become an N7 Systems Alliance soldier when he grows up, just like his father. Rea on the other hand, prefers to become an engineer of the Normandy, just like her mother. Both twins occasionally argue about which of their dreams is better, which can be frequent in Shepard's family. Regardless, Shepard and Tali have a very lovingly family.

"Mommy says we are going to the Achican Traverse." Karel said to his sister.

"Uncle Joker said we're going to a system!" Rea snapped back, shortening her brother's name.

"Alright you two, let's not start a fight on the ship. It is your birthday and we don't want spoil it, do we?" Tali said, picking up Karel in her arms and holding him to her side, head length and smiling.

"She's right, today you two have just been recruited on the ship. You two want to become the best recruits of the Normandy, do you?" Shepard intervened while picking up Rea in his arms, looking at her with a joyful smile.

"Yes sir!" Both twins saluted to their father.

"Alrighty, then make sure you keep her safe and sound my little privates."

Tali kisses Karel on the cheek, proud of her birthday boy hybrid. The Normandy is one of the only places Tali doesn't need to wear her helmet all of the time. Her immune system has adapted to the germs of the ship, but she still need the rest of her enviro-suit on, of course.

"Ew! Gross!" Karel exclaimed in his high child voice, wiping his hands over his cheek.

Shepard and Tali burst into laughter.

"Commander, incoming message from _Councilor Hackett_. He's requesting your presence at the QEC room." Comm Specialist Traynor announced to Shepard, just across from her station.

"Daddy's gotta go my little privates. He will report back in duty E.T.A. five minutes. Daddy over and out!" Shepard saluted to his children after handing Rea over to Tali.

"Over and out Daddy!" the twins saluted to his father just before he make his way to the War Room.

**. . . . . . . . . . . .**

A blueish virtual image of Hackett patches up before Shepard in the QEC room of the War Room hall. Instead of being in an Alliance admiral's uniform, Hackett is in a councilor's uniform after being elected as humanity's next representative to the council in the aftermath of rallying the galaxy together with the help of the other citadel councilors.

"Commander Shepard." Hackett started. "I apologize for your ignorance, but I have just received _Admiral Murray's_ dossiers of the urgent priority."

"Let's hear it." Shepard replied crossing his arms.

"Alliance expeditions have picked up a series of unknown SOS waves in an unexplored system of the Attican Traverse which they've dubbed the _Eurna System_. Executive squads have been dispatched on a terrestrial moon of the system's only two planets (a gas giant planet). What they have uncovered was a pod of some kind, and it's still operating."

The information Hackett just gave out has immediately stunned the commander in the inside. First, he was briefed about an unearth Prothean beacon on Eden Prime eight years ago, now he gets a report of an uncovered, yet still active alien pod.

"Any chance it's Prothean or Forerunner design?" guessed Shepard. He wonders if Hackett knows what technology the object the Alliance has found is based off of any race Shepard knows.

"Unlikely. The pod's impact to the satellite was dated less than two hundred years ago. Out of all the known existing space-faring races, this alien pod's tech is something we've never seen before. Speculators say there is something valuable inside it. I don't know much about it yet, the case is heavily classified so pirates like the _Kig-Yar_ wouldn't seize it. But securing that pod unharmed is one of the Alliance's top priorities of the pyramid. Once the pod is secured here to the Citadel, researchers will analyze and study the pod's tech, and reveal what importance it would give to us and the community." Hackett speaks with tension, giving out the known details to the commander, slamming a fist into his left palm.

This '_pod_' the Alliance just found is _origin_ '_undetermined_'. Shepard knew assignments like this always means unfortunate circumstances to come along the way, just like the _Eden Prime War_.

"You said this is an '_u__rgent_' priority, Councilor?" Shepard asked.

Hackett nods his head while crossing his arms. "By 21 hundred hours after the party was dispatched, Admiral Murray has received this audio transmission straight from the satellite's surface. Patching it to you now." He pulls out his omi-tool, patching the transmission to the QEC's speakers. The first thing they hear is a series of firing firearms.

_# "Lt. Jackson of the 315! We're being attack by a pack of unknown hostiles! We- Whoa!" *SWOOSH*#_

An unearthly screech and the sound of something swiping cuts of the man's sentence, indicating that _Lt. Jackson_ has just avoided something attacking him.

_# "We've suffered sever casualties! We can not hold the enemy off for much longer! Repeat: We can't hold them off any-"_

_*CRUNCH!* #_

The clear noise of a body being crushed into a bloody scene right after another roar is heard from behind the sounds of shooting firearms and explosions.

_# *OAROUGH-* - *Static* #_

A deep bellowing roar is cut off into dead static. Hackett pulls out his omni-tool again, closing the audio transmission.

"There have been no other ship reports since the 315 was sent down. What ever assaulted them is definitely still down there... somewhere. Possibly something smarter than us. Murray fears if another team is sent down, they to would face the same fate. That's why he recruited someone like you back onto the Normandy for this commission." Hackett spoke.

"Are you sure that pod is still out there?" Shepard asks again.

Hackett nods. "We're still getting the same readings of the alien pod on the satellite right now, unless it's a trap, which I don't think so." he responded. "Once you've retrieved the pod to your ship, notify me again about your reports. Also, because of your status as the _Guardian of the Galaxy_, you are clear to open and or use what ever you've just found."

"I'll do what ever it takes Councilor." said Shepard, understanding the information of this mission.

"Be careful down there Shepard, and one more thing. Tell your children, I wish them their happy birthday. Hackett out." he finished his last sentence with his usuall '_goodbye_' quote. His virtual image dims out.

**. . . . . . . . . . . .**

Exiting out the elevator shaft to the shuttle bay, Shepard is in his N7 Armor, holding his Helm of Salvation in his left arm. The moon's atmosphere is too inhospitable to breathe in, and his guardian helmet is a breather type, perfect for the satellite's thin and breathless gasses.

His team has awaited him in the shuttle bay, waiting for their next orders from the commander.

"Liara, Javik, you two and I will escort the pod out of the moon's surface onto the Normandy. Once after, Liara and _Glyph_ will analyze the pod's tech, while you, Javik, read what species that thing once belonged to." Shepard orders his two squad mates.

"How about I go on this one." Ashley intervened excitedly, raising an arm up.

"Williams?" he responded.

"Just like old times _Skipper_." she smirked and saluted at the same time.

"I shall oust myself with the Ashley human, Commander. Primitives tend to become hysterical for their turns. Pretty unfortunate in this cycle." Javik steps aside, crossing his arms.

"Alright. Liara, Ash, you with me on this one." he ordered. He turns to Cortez, reviewing the Normandy's newest _M-44 Hammerhead_. "How's it looking over there, Cortez?"

"Well...Looking good as new Commander, and ready for it's first drive." replied Cortez.

Karel suddenly rushes over and locks onto one of Shepard's legs, laughing in an overjoyed manner.

"There you are my little private marine." Shepard pick up his son with his free arm and places him in front view, smiling.

"This is Alliance marine Karel! Reporting for duty sir!" he salutes to his father, who chuckles joyfully.

"Now now Karel, your father is very busy right now. Come on." Tali, holding Rea in her right arm, tells Karel to come back to her so Shepard doesn't get distracted.

"Aww!" Karel '_aws_' in shame and walks back to his mother in disappointment.

James walks next to Shepard's right and pads a hand on his shoulder, chuckling. "I could have sworn you were about to take him with you, Loco. That would have been fun."

"Daddy's got work to do my little privates. He'll be back before you know it. Daddy over and out!" Shepard salutes to his kids, who saluted back to him, with out saying a word though.

**. . . . . . . . . . . .**

The Normandy enters the the thin atmosphere of the uncharted moon of the Eurna System.

Shepard equips an _M-8 Avenger_, _M-3 Predator_, and an _N7-Crusader_ onto the back his armor. He fastens his Helm of Salvation last with a clicking noise. *Click!*

Ashley Williams puts her breather helmet on as well, and Liara straps her mouth mask onto her face. Asari bodies can physically withstand many different atmosphere pressures on many different worlds, including the vacuum of space. However, they still need oxygen to breathe regularly to survive.

The next minute, the trio release and enter the newly polished Hammerhead. The first M-44 Hammerhead the Normandy originally had was found and brought back by Commander Shepard five years ago when working for Cerberus, on the planet of Zeona. The Hammerhead he found was part of a Cerberus Project known as '_Firewalker_', in which Shepard helped accomplished. When the Normandy was brought back to the Alliance to be upgraded, it was demolished by the Reaper forces to Earth. This Alliance hammerhead is a newly replacement of the original, and it is time for it's first drive ever.

The Hammerhead's hatches close shut, and the squad fastens themselves onto their seats. Shepard fiddles with the machine's console, until it's engines and systems operate.

{Primary systems online.} A somewhat monotone male voice comes through the hovercraft. {Welcome to the _M-44 Hammerhead infantry fighting vehicle_. This is your onboard_ VI_.}

Shepard turns the hovering Hammerhead to the opening Shuttle Bay hatch. Once the hatch is fully opened, the Hammerhead hovers down the runway and out of the Normandy's hanger.

"Say goodbye to Daddy mijos." said James to Shepard's kids.

"Bye bye daddy!" Karel and Rea said at the same time, waving their hands.

**. . . . . . . . . . . .**

*VoOOM* The Hammerhead hovers safely on the moon's surface, just before it could take impact.

The satellite of the gas giant (one of the only two planets of the Eurna System) is a harsh desert of darkened moon rock mountain formations, chasms and sheer cliffs. The atmosphere is too uninhabitable for humans. It's extremely thin and clear as a night sky, but there are still gas clouds in the sky appearing in an abnormal pinkish tone. The gasses are being produced through a series of spewing vents from the results of volcanic activity. Boiling underground acid, poisonous gasses and earthquakes are very frequent on this harsh terrestrial world. It's amazing how long the pod Shepard must find has lasted in this hostile environment. One way or another, he must locate it and bring it back to the Normandy unharmed.

{Mission objective has been located.} The M-44's VI states out.

Shepard examines the location of the excavation camp site on the scanner's radar. It's exactly 2010.57 meters away.

"When was the last time you drove one of these things?" Ashley asked the commander.

"When working for Cerberus. Why?"

"Nothing. Just wondering." she responded back quickly.

Shepard sets up the Hammerhead to dive mode. "Hold on." he said to his team mates while focusing on the screen in front of him, which shows where and what they're facing outside.

The Hammerhead boosts straight forward at high speeds. It speeds up to a ramp formation in the terrain, sending the Hammerhead into the air.

*Pow! Pow! Pow!* Hoverjets propel the vehicle to keep at a high level away from the uneven obstacles in the chasm below.

The M-44 makes it to the other side of the gap. Seconds pass, and there's a blockage in the path. An avalanche as obstructed the M-44's way.

{Obstruction detected.} notified the VI.

Because there are too many rocks to blow a clear passage, Shepard makes the Hammerhead hop into the air and boosts it up more with the hoverjets. They eventually overheat and the M-44 drops down. Luckily, it lands just on the other side of the avalanche.

{Obstruction cleared.}

The Hammerhead continues it's trek down the path of the uncharted world. After just several seconds, the squad of the M-44 has reached the camp site zone.

{Mission objective reached. Electromagnetic waves of unknown origin detected.} It is hard to ignore that these unknown waves the M-44 is detecting could be the alien pod Shepard has been briefed about back on the Normandy.

**. . . . . . . . . . . .**

The doors open up. Shepard, Ashley and Liara step out of the M-44 and into the dig site camp. Their guns are drawn out, ready to shoot anything that attacks them first.

"What the hell?" Ashley spoke to herself, gazing at the aftermath of the attack.

The camp had three rectangular shelters, two of them which were topped over and all of them with huge dents on them. One the side of an outcrop is a destroyed _Mako_ the military of the excavation party used, still burning away. Debris and specks of ash was blown from the ground by the oxygenless breezes. The entire excavation camp pretty much looked like ghost town after an act of war. Blood stains were present on certain objects, but there are no signs of any bodies at all.

"Looks like the Geth attack on Eden Prime." Ashley said nervously. She begins to have memories of her former ground unit, _the 212_, being overpowered by the Geth forces, and the aftermath of Eden Prime's lost beauty. The time when she first met Commander Shepard and Kaidan Alenko after saving her life from the searching Geth units.

"These men were a party of researchers and executive officers. They had no idea what was about come." Liara said in her usual calm, but more concerned voice.

Shepard and Ashley check out one of the shelters that has been toppled sideways. They enter into the huge hole that was on the bottom of the building. Something big came through there for sure. And around the big gash they've just entered were the bullet holes left from firing pistols. The shell casings were scattered beneath their feet. The shooter didn't have accurate aiming obviously.

"Damn." started Ash. "What were these people shooting at? These were just traditional researchers."

While the two didn't find anything else too significant, Liara investigates the other shelter that hasn't been knock over. With the door locked shut, the only way in was through the large rip on the window.

On the steel floor is an active datapad that Liara picks up. She reads the entry carefully for any information abut the pod they must find here.

[_Datapad Log: Phineas Moder  
_

_We've just landed on this planetoid where that strange signal was detected, and the team and I discovered something that was truly astounding. _

_We have uncovered a chamber of unknown alien tech. The date of it's impact on this moon was around one hundread and seventy-one years ago! No other race in the galaxy today has such technology like this, ever.  
_

_I speculate it to be some kind of escape pod. But some say it's hidden away valuable goods or God knows what. None of us are equipped to scan exactly what could be in there. The glass of that thing is to hard to see though to, like it dropped to 0 °C inside like a damned cryogenic chamber._

_Today, we will pull that fucker out of hiding, and into sunlight. After, we'll ship it off to the Citadel for proper study, and more importantly, find out what phenomenal secrets that thing might be hiding for the community._]

Liara places the datapad back down on a small desk. She may have gotten useful information on the past priority and the alien pod itself prior to the attack, but she's gotten no solid evidence on the attack itself. With that, Liara jumps out of the shelter to regroup with Shepard and Ash.

**. . . . . . . . . . . .**

After making sure the rest of the unexplored area is clear of any hostiles, Shepard's squad splits up into their own directions. Liara will investigate the downed _Kodiak shuttle_ over to the left on a small slope. Ashley will check out the third wrecked shelter that's been topped forward. The commander will scout ahead, to see if he can find where ever the alien pod could possibly be.

Lt. Williams enters through the huge hole left on the roof of the knocked over shelter. She is surprised how big the holes on the shelters were. They don't look like they were made by any sort of firearm, but more like a giant nail being hammered down onto thin weak metal. She knew something has made it, something '_big_' supposably. It had to be.

Ashely becomes mentally horrified when she look up and sees two other large holes with a series of scratches around them. Some were dented in while others were opened cracks, as if someone stabbed a knife repeatedly against the metal, a '_big_' knife at that.

"Uh... Are you seeing all this, Commander?" Ashley contacts Shepard through her comm still staring up at the above damage. "What do you make of this crap?" she continued.

"I don't know yet." he responded.

Getting a closer look, Ash can see the suspicious bright greenish color of some kind of oze, stained an dripping off the side of the second hole on the wall above. A drop plops into one of her palms. *Spik!* The stuff was gooey and sticky. Ash thinks it's blood of some sort. But blood from what?

Ash suddenly hears her heart beating in her ears after this realization. What if the killers weren't raiders at all. What if they were some kind of animals indigenous to this moon? Impossible, no life could exist in this hazardous environment. But better yet, hostile planets such as _Mustafar_ can support life both intelligent (the _Mustafarians_) and non-intellegent. Also, _thresher maws_ and _harvesters_ are able to survive in harsh uninhabitable worlds, but could a thresher maw or a harvester do the same on a volcanic world like this one? Could the attackers be be a small pack of one of those things? Nah, thresher maws extremely territorial and prefer to be solitary beings. As for harvesters, they tend to attack by dropping smaller creatures (_Klixen_) they carry with them.

Ash takes a breath to let her fears go before turning her attentions ways from the scene. It was simple too much for her. But just as she turns around, she pots a cabinet next to the sideways wall. Ashley tries to open it, but it's locked. It must be overridden manually to unlock it. She pulls out her omni-tool and presses her hand against it. After just a few seconds, the cabinet opens. Inside was a pack of three sonic detonators.

"_What's this?_" She spoke to herself quietly. She picks them up and straps them to her side, figuring out they may come in handy later.

**. . . . . . . . . . . .**

Meanwhile, outside in the aftermath, Liara reaches the crashed Kodiak shuttle, still burning in flames. As she examines the wreckage further, she can tell it was no accident.

The shuttle has deep dents and large dark scratch marks. One of the shuttle's tails has been ripped off. The missing piece was laying just several yards away from the wreckage. Something had to be strong enough to rip that thing right off place.

Something came through here... something '_huge_'. Maybe even a whole pack of them.

Liara walks to the opposite side of the wrecked shuttle, but stops dead in her tracks. She has spotted something that really catches her eyes as they widen in horror.

"_Goddess!_" she exclaimed. She immediately attempts to contact the Commander. "Shepard! Over here! You need to look at this!" she said fearfully at the comm.

Shepard didn't bother to ask questions, he instinctively rushes over to the shuttle where straight for Liara. He knew something disturbing has caught the arari's eyes in terms by the sound of her voice.

Both Shepard and Ash arrive to where a terrified and stiff Liara was standing. In front of the trio was the bottom half of a man's torso laying in a pool of its own blood. Unknown to Shepard, it's _Lt. Jackson_ from the audio transmission... or what's left of him.

Ashley turns away from the sight and holds both of her hands against her helmet, trying to fight back her nausea. Shepard steps forward and kneels down, examining the decaying corps.

"He's been mutilated. Something sliced his body in two. There's no sign of the other half either." he said.

"Any idea what might have done this?" Liara asked, still frightened by the scene.

"Something with devastating power, and savagery to do this in just one blow." the commander said back to her. Then he see something else on the ground. It was a splotch of clear, sticky liquid. After touching it himself, something else pops into his head. This stuff looks like drying saliva. He looks back at the body, then, it hits him right on.

"Doesn't look like he's been cut off, looks more like he's been _chewed_." he said, still looking at Jackson's remains.

"By what?" Liara asked a second time.

Shepard looks up to her eyes with a stern look in his own eyes. With out hesitation, he replies back with, "Good question."

**. . . . . . . . . . . .**

The team continues down the path way until they each a small ridge. On it, was a large cave entrance, blocked by what is left of a small rock slide.

"Over there, Shepard. Could that be the dig site?" Ashley asked Shepard, pointing at it.

"Maybe." Shepard quickly replies back.

The Commander steps forward towards the rubble blockage and pulls out his omni-tool. To his surprise, the e.m. readings are stronger than ever. This is defiantly the location of the alien pod, but how will they be able to get through the rubble? Shepard looks on both sides, looking for a possible passage through, but he found no luck.

"Damn it! There's no way in." he cursed.

A light bulb flicks above Ash's head. Her sonic detonators, she knew they would be useful later. The question is: '_Will these things work for the situation?_' She walks toward the rubble, passing Shepard.

"Let me try my keys." she said. Ashley places one detonator on each side. One on the left, one on the front, and one on the right.

Ash suddenly runs for cover behind a rock to the right. "Fire in the hole!" she yelled while running. Shepard and Liara do the same behind a stack of supply crates to the left.

*POWPOOW!*

A sonic wave rumbles the ground and chunks of stone rain down above the trio. They all look up, and when the cloud of dust and rubble clears away, the trio can see the entrance to the cave is now clear.

"Remind me to ask you where you got those 'keys', Lieutenant." Shepard ironically asks her for a reminder for later once the mission is over.

**. . . . . . . . . . . .**

Shepard and his team cautiously walk through the darkness of the cave with their weapon flashlights on. This is actually a tunnel that's been dug up, just big enough for a Mako or a Hammerhead to explore.

"This place looks unstable. Watch out for a cave in." Shepard warned his two squad mates.

Seconds time has passed. After walking into nothing but continuous pitch blackness, Shepard and his squad makes a right turn to where a light beams through a large crater on the ceiling of a natural tunnel intersection system. The crater was formed when the pod took impact on the satellite just after escaping the Metarex assault nearly two centuries ago.

In the center of the intersection, where the light shines over is what Shepard came for. It's the _active alien pod_, resting and tilting in a pit it has made during the crash.

"Looks like we've found the pod." said Shepard. "Seems intact. We're going in." Shepard proceeded down to the pit. Ash and Liara follow.

Once they've gotten up close and personal, they've got a good examination of the pod. The back side was facing towards them. There was a blinking red light on top of a small antenna, the source of the unknown e.m. distress waves. The front view was completely different from the back and easy to examine the pod's characteristics. It was about ten feet tall and egg-shaped with a pair ducts and small ventilation grills on each side on the front of the pod, and what appears to be folded in wings on the symmetry sides. On the middle was a small tail on the top half and a green ring going around the pod's lower diameter. On the center of the ring on the front side was a large glassy looking chamber. It's hard to see exactly what's inside it because it is blinded in a wall of tiny frosted crystals. It is possible that this is some kind of stasis pod the Alliance has uncovered. The only damage present on the vessel is on the top right side and bottom, but the burns appeared to be just as old as the impact itself. The damage was taken when it's interstellar colony was bombarded by the enigmatic Metarex ship, one-hundred and seventy-one years ago.

"This is incredible! Technology that's been in here for almost two hundred years and still functioning." Liara talked to herself.

"Uh... We've found what we came for, but how are we gonna get this thing out of here?" Ashley asked the other two.

Technically this was an excellent question. The pod's bottom was stationed deep into the hole, and due to it's massive size, it was impossible to carry out with out assistance. Shepard fears if the rest of the Normandy's crew was dispatched down here, they to would suffer a horrible fate by what ever attacked the camp site.

Hesitating for several moments, Liara comes up with an idea go get the alien pod unstuck from it's spot. "I can try use a biotic lift to levitate it out of place."

Liara steps in front of the pod. The asari starts to glow blue. Her natural biotics power up.

*SHIWOOWM!* A biotic pulse instantly surrounds the pod.

Liara then lifts her hands up and outward. The pod creaks and tilts in more. Thinking she needs assistance, both Shepard and Ashley grab both sides and, using as much force as they can, try to push it forward. Then...

*CIRACK-BOSHHM!* The pod drops forward, with the front facing upwards. Liara's biotics fade out.

"Right. So... what now?" Ashley pants after using so much energy on the pod.

Shepard looks back to where they came from. He realizes it was big enough for a vehicle to go through.

"I have an idea." he said.

**. . . . . . . . . . . .**

The M-44 Hammerhead's systems turn on, hovers off the ground and turns the opposite direction. Shepard has entered and activated the M-44. Inside, he switches the viewing screen from front view, to back view.

{Back View Mode activated.} notified the VI.

The Hammerhead emerges out of the dark tunnel and into the intersection room facing backwards about a minute later. It parks just a few yards away from the alien pod. Ash and Liara, who stayed behind to make sure the pod remains secured, open up the M-44's back pockets to pull out its two winches. Shepard jumps out of the hovercraft to help his two friends strap and tighten the winches around the pod's wings. The commander can't guarantee this plan will work but it's the only best option they have for the moment.

Now that the winches are strapped around the wings, Shepard and his team head back to the Hammerhead. But then, Liara hears something from behind.

*GRUMBLE!*

She heard a faint yet very disturbing growling noise, coming from one of the dark tunnels on the exact opposite side of their tunnel, which makes her turn her head back in a quick passe. But there was nothing she could see. She turns back to the M-44 and enters it.

The Hammerhead powers up again. Slowly, it move forward. A tug is made when the winches become fully extended. With more speed applied, the Hammerhead continues forward, and the pod slowly is being pulled out of it's resting place.

{Object being extracted.} the VI once again stated.

**. . . . . . . . . . . .**

Couple minutes time later, the M-44 Hammerhead reaches the exit and the pod has safely made it outside undamaged.

{Object extraction complete.}

At last, the alien pod is out of it's spot after some one hundred and seventy-one years.

"Joker, bring the Normandy down here to our signal. The pod is secured and ready for immediate evac." Shepard contacts Joker through the comm.

"Roger that Commander. Locking in on your location. ETA seven minutes." the pilot replies back.

Joker prepares to fly the Normandy into the moon's atmosphere, but just as he is about to.. *Beep-Beep-Beep!* a notification beeping noise breaks through. Something else has appear in the Normandy's radar.

What Joker can see on the radar is a small _unknown fighter ship_ heading straight to the commander's signal location.

"Commander. We've got an unidentified ship inbound!" Joker comes back through the comm, alarmed.

"Give me an IFF on it Joker." Shepard quickly replies.

Joker works away on the ship's console, and he is shocked about the situation.

"Commander, the ship isn't Alliance." said Joker "The ship's signatures are unknown, and..." he stops his sentence when he gets a familiar yet ghostly fraction within the ship itself. "You're not gonna believe this Shepard! I'm picking up a dozen 'Geth' signatures in that thing, and it's coming in fast to you!" he continued in horror.

**. . . . . . . . . . . .**

{Incoming ship of undetermined origin.} said the M-44's VI.

In the sky above, an oval-shaped spacecraft roughly about 60 ft. in length and 30 ft. wide hovers above the opposite end of the camp from the Hammerhead. It's hatch open up. Dropping out of it were nine troop unites as the ship hovers around in a smooth triangle.

The unites were huddled in, but once after all nine units are dispatched, they then stood up in a bipedal stance. A pair of aerials extend out of the backs of the troop units, and a violate light glows from the tips and on various areas on the bipedal figures. Shepard and his team stare at the scene through the screen of the Hammerhead.

Soon after, a single whitish light appears on the heads of the figures making a mechanical static-like sound. {_*KRRREIE-ZRROUH!*_}

To Shepard's horror, its an army of nine troops he thought were destroyed by the Crucible's wave. An army of nine synthetic based lifeforms he first fought on Eden Prime eight years ago. Synthetics he made a truce with between them and their creators (the Quarians) four years ago. '_Geth_'.

"That's impossible." said a surprised Lt. Williams. "They shouldn't be here anymore. They were destroyed."

"Unless they've been rebuilt." Shepard said while still staring in terror at the screen.

"But then, who would..." Ashley couldn't finish up what she was about to say, but still shook her head left to right. She was still completely shocked at what the are seeing right now.

The Geth army was made out of three _red __destroyers_, two _hunters_, one _shock trooper_, and three _traditional trooper_ platforms.

The unknown spacecraft quickly flies away from plane sight. The shock trooper unit scans the Hammerhead through it's eye scanner. After, all of the geth units instantly pull out their guns , aiming at the Hammerhead. Their head lights suddenly change from white to bright red. At the exact time their head lights change to red, a small triangular chip piece quickly slides down just above their lights, cutting off some of the bright lights on their heads, and giving them a more demonic looking appearance. This is something no geth Shepard has fought before has ever done.

Without warning, the geth destroyers suddenly begin to fire homing rockets at the motionless Hammerhead.

"Shepard!" shouted Liara.

"I know!" he yelled. Shepard makes the M-44 swiftly dodge the incoming rockets. The rockets lose their target and missing both the Hammerhead and the intact alien pod.

*TSOOM! TSOOM! TSOOM!* The Hammerhead fires three guided missiles at the geth destroyers. *BOOM! BOOM!* One destroyer platform was taken out, while the other units scatter. Another destroyer manages to dodge the third incoming missile. The geth shock trooper pulls out it's weapon and a purple electrical pulse beam is shot out of it. It hits the unlucky Hammerhead!

The M-44 is covered in a fatal wave of electric charges. Its systems die off and the Hammerhead drops to the ground with a loud bang. *CRASH!*

"Crap!" shouted Shepard, while trying to get the systems back online.

"Well... this is unfortunate." Liara logically pointed out the obvious.

Not wanting to sit around any longer, Shepard instinctively sits up from his seat and uses his right leg to kick the Hammerhead's hatch to open up. "Urgh!" *Bang! Bang!* with one more good kick, *Bang!*, he manages to manually get the hatch to open. He quickly jumps out from the right side, followed by Liara then Ashley.

As soon as they got out, the standard geth troopers were already at close range.

"Behind you Shepard!" the lieutenant shouted.

Reacting quickly, Shepard and his squad mates fire at will to the geth. But when they do so, the geth suddenly pull out what looked like a violet toned omni-tool, and once activated, a purple shield is converted for each individual. The bullets did nothing but bounced off with no effect.

"What the hell!?" Ash yelled again, surprised by the new geth motives.

*VOSHWOM!* Liara uses a boitic throw against the three geth, knocking them off their heals making them lose control of their omni-shields.

Shepard and the others open fire at the downed geth. One of them however, hurriedly gets back up and leaps sideways, taking cover on the left side of the M-44, avoiding the gun shots of it's attackers.

With two less geth to worry about, Shepard, Ashley and Liara move out take out the rest of those that were dispatched.

A destroyer attempts to counter attack the three from behind a stack of crates to their right. {*_TGRI-TIrr!_*} the geth's synthetic cords make a grumble, just before firing another homing rocket. *TSOW!*

Shepard shoots the rocket from behind causing it to blow up in mid air. *Boom!*

"We're an easy target!" Shepard realizes that if they stood together out in the open for much longer, they'ed be wiped out in one second. To hit the geth from both sides, the three must move out in different directions "Split up!"

Ash and Liara move out while the commander stays back to deal with the destroyer that tried to counter attack them.

Liara lifts the hiding geth trooper from behind the M-44 into the air with her biotics and shoots the defenseless geth with her _M-4 Shuriken SMG_.

As Shepard charges at the destroyer that's taking cover behind the crates, he swoops in to it's side and shoots at it, breaking down it's barrier. But before he can finish it off, the geth destroyer pulls out it's omni-shield as a back up defense plan. He throws out a grenade he equipped with him at the geth. Before it had the moment to react... *KABOOM!* the blast knocks over the geth and deactivates it's omni-shield. Shepard then pulls out his _soldier's __omni-blade_ right away and charges. "Uagh!" *KSHINK!* with so much strength, he impales the destroyer through the chest area, ripping right through it's armor plating and deactivating the platform for good.

"Commander, you've got a ship of Geth construction heading your way!" says Joker through Shepard's comm.

A large, grub-like spaceship (a Geth dropship) swoops above the battlefield. Dropping out were two _geth juggernauts_ and, to make things worse, a dark grey _geth colossus_. *SHABOOM!* The colossus makes a loud hard crash once it is dispatched on the surface. {*_KEEHERRRGH!_*} the quadrupedal geth mech grumbles as it stands up and it's systems go online. Like all the other geth, its white eye light turns into an intense red color, and a triangular chip piece drops down between it's light and it's armor, giving it the evil eye kind of look.

"Where the hell are these things coming from!?" yelled Ashley.

Plasma shots hit her shields. Ashley turns around to see the shock trooper geth aiming at the two girls. It deploys a helix shield to protect itself from the incoming bullets. *Kaboom!* a missile knocks the two off their heals. The last geth destroyer has taken refuge inside the downed shuttle. Shepard rushes over to help his teammates, avoiding a siege pulse explosion from the colossus. *BOOM!*

Liara blows the helix shield off the ground with her biotics and fires at the shock trooper. A perfectly place round from her M-4 Shuriken hits the geth's eye light, blasting it off and the shock trooper platform falls lifeless.

*Boom!* The destroyer's missile strikes the commander's shields, bring it down. "My shields are out!" he shouted.

The two squad mates try to shoot it down, but it takes cover again. The three run up the hill to the shuttle, but the destroyer has disappeared from sight.

From behind at the corner of his right ear, Shepard hears foot steps running over to them, getting closer, and the sound of an omni-blade being pulled out is heard.

With immediate instinct taking over, he swiftly turns around with his own omni-blade out. One millisecond at first, it seemed like there was nothing, until... *KIRSHEE!* his omni-blade makes contact with a single violet omni-blade, and decloaking one of the geth hunters that has flanked Shepard from behind. "Errhgh!" he uses a much force he can to keep the geth's omni-blade at bay from him.

"G-Go!" he demanded to his teammates. With out asking questions or assisting the commander, they obey his order and move on without him. He will stay there to hold the geth hunter off.

With out warning, the hunter lifts up its right leg and kicks Shepard on the stomach, forcing him to be knocked over and roll down the steep ledge.

As Liara and Ashley run from the shuttle's crash site, the last destroyer fires another missile from behind an outcrop. They dodge it, and proceed to shoot it. It's shields go out, so it uses it's backup omni-shield to block their gun shots. When the geth sticks out it's ML-77 missile launcher, Liara's boitic powers swoosh the gun out of it's hands, causing it to loose control of it's omni-shield and open for an attack. Ashley pulls out her _N7-Crusader shotgun_ and fiercely blasts the geth destroyer through it's torso. White circulation fluid spews out from the damaged destroyer unit as the lieutenant shoot is down.

**. . . . . . . . . . . .**

"Urgh... Ahgh!" Shepard grunts as he get back up onto his feet. Looking back at the M-44 and the alien pod, he can see the two geth juggernauts are already scanning the pod through their omni-tools. The colossus still stands in it's landing spot.

He pulls out his _M-3 Predator_ heavy pistol and attempts to get the geth's attention by putting a single shot behind one of the juggernauts, in not wanting to risk damaging the alien pod with too much fire power. The round hits the geth's shielding.

{*_TRGRRII-GRRUGH!_*} The juggernaut units' synthetic cords make a staticy grumble as their attention is turn to the commander. Their demonic eye lights switch on.

One of them fires a distortion rocket at Shepard. But he was able to escape from it in the nick of time. *BOOM!* He attacks the two geth units with his _M-8 Avenger_, but he finds out the shielding of these things are so high, more advanced than ever.

The colossus stands in a firing position and ejects a huge blue ball of scorching plasma energy at Shepard. "BOOSHM!* It misses the commander, but it did break down one of the juggernaut's shields. Shepard fires at the juggernaut, but it instantly pulls out it's unbreakable omni-shield in time. Shepard is starting to hate this new ability the geth he's fighting right now can do.

The second juggernaut blows the commander's shields with its heavy plasma shotgun. With only one more grenade left, he pull it out and throws it to the one that has shot his shields down. *Boom!* The explosion stuns the geth unit. Shepard was able to destroy the geth juggernaut now that its shields have been disrupted by the last grenade. But he still has to deal with the last juggernaut and the colossus.

**. . . . . . . . . . . .**

Back with Ash and Liara, the two stand back to back, ready to shoot at any geth that comes to view. What they don't realize is the two geth hunters have cloaked themselves to be undetected to the naked eye. With so much stealth, one of the hunters has sneaked up to their sides. The sound of it's omni-blade teases the corner of their ears. The two girls react just in time. *Bish!* the omni-blade disrupts Ashley's shields, decloaking the geth hunter as it strikes. A boitic wave by Liara throws the hunter back. But it was able to get it's tactical cloak back online just before the two girls can attack it more.

The second geth hunter decloaks itself, standing right behind the unwary Ash and Liara. It shoots it's plasma shotgun at the asari, destroying her shields. It hits her again, leaving large burns on her Shadow Broker's outfit. Ashley fires at it, disrupting it's own shields but was able to go back to invisible mode again while leaping out of the incoming gun shots.

"You can't hide forever you bastards!" Lt. Williams cursed at the now invisible geth hunters.

**. . . . . . . . . . . .**

The last geth juggernaut shoot's it's shotgun at the knocked over supply crates where Shepard is taking cover. He regrets having to let his team go off on their own, but right now, he has no choice. He peaks out with his Avenger in hand and shoots at the juggernaut, but at this exact time, the colossus was able to get a clear shot at him and fires a siege pulse at the crate. Shepard sees it coming and makes a run for it. *BOOSHM!*

Seeing Shepard fleeing from cover, the colossus positions it's front end in a downwards position, readying itself to jump. *Vooom!* It leaps high into the air. Shepard looks back to see it coming straight at him in the sky.

*KBOSHOOOOOM!* It lands with a big impact. The shock wave from behind knocks him into the air completely. The colossus has an easy target now. It positions itself to fire again. But this time, instead of a siege pulse beam, it's red light fills with electric charges and an intense beam of light. Shepard knew what was about to happen. He rolls out of the way. *VIREEEVROOM!* Firing out of the colossus was a laser beam that followed Shepard, but it misses him. This geth colossus unit has a built in laser canon!

As the colossus turns around to try execute him again, a large cloud of pinkish gasses spew out a steam geyser next to the colossus's right. That attracts both of their attentions to it, because rising out of the crater this time wasn't just a clouds of noxious gasses.

A serpent-like figure emerges from the crater. It was dark cyan in color, but has a lavender underbelly. The snake figure also has a set of four small pointed forelimbs. It's head has no eyes, but it still knows exactly where the colossus is at. Steaming out of it's beak like mouth was a trail of the same kind of noxious pinkish gasses. This snake-like creature is a 'C_rater Viper_'.

*SHIERJH! OURAGHOOHM!* The crater viper bellows a loud roar just before it open's its jaws again going for the colossus. It clamps onto the colossus's shoulder area. Shepard watches as the crater viper lifts the large geth platform into the air and tosses it against an outcrop causing it to explode. *KABOOM!*

Shepard is surprised how much power this creature has to defeat the geth colossus. It turns it's head down to Shepard. He dashes straight back to the camp site and the Hammerhead. The viper attacks again, but this time, it get's a mouth full of moon rock from the ground instead of the commander.

**. . . . . . . . . . . .**

A geth hunter shoots it's plasma shotgun at Shepard's two companions. Liara tosses it back with her biotics. The other hunter decloaks beside the knocked over geth. But just as it was about to fire, a crater viper erupts from the gas clouds from the crater behind the two geth.

The viper screeches as it dives down, grabbing the standing geth in its maw. Lifting the geth hunter up, the viper tosses the geth above it, and swallows it whole in a single gulp.

"Run!" Liara grabs Ash's right hand and the pair makes a break for it, back to the downed shuttle and the Hammerhead.

The remaining geth hunter struggles to get back up. Suddenly, another crater viper erupts from the clouds of another crater. It grabs the geth in it's mouth, and brings itself with the hunter platform back down into it's crater.

*Blurrgh!* The viper that devoured the first geth hunter regurgitates it out of the crater and into the air, before crashing down to the ground. The synthetic was simply to indigestible for the creature to handle, and the creature is '_not_' the crater viper itself. Still, the hunter unit is destroyed by the viper.

**. . . . . . . . . . . .**

The juggernaut back at the camp site tries to hold off two other vipers. But a sudden swing of one of a forearm slices through its shields and the machine, killing it instantly. *Swoosh!* *CIRACKSHH!*

Shepard and his two companions regroup together. Surrounding the camp was a pack of crater vipers focused on the trio. It now makes sense to Shepard. These were the creatures that wrecked the camp and consumed everyone but Lt. Jackson's bottom half.

Crater vipers are normally solitary animals. It's very unusual to find them cooperating together in packs like this.

Shepard contacts the Normandy. "Joker! Lock onto our signal and bring out reinforcements! We've got the pod and we are requesting back up, pronto!"

"Roger that Commander. Locking in to your signal and coming your way. ETA, three minutes."

*OURAGHOUM!* A crater viper roars out and attacks the trio. Shepard shots it's mouth where it is most vulnerable. It worked, the viper backs up, shakes and shrieks in pain. The other crater vipers zoom in. Shepard and his squad take aim and fire into their mouths. When one gets too close and nearly snaps at Liara, she shoots her SMG on it's underbelly. The way how the creature reacted by the shots, she realized their underbellies were also their target zones.

"Hit them from underneath! They are most vulnerable there to!" the asari shouted out.

"I can see that!" Shepard replied.

The three move out. But they have become separated, a tactic crater vipers use to catch easy prey.

*Swoosh!* A forelimb nearly dices the commander. He ducks down in time to avoid it and puts his crusader up, firing it at will on the soft scaly underbelly of the viper. It shrieks in pain and retreats back into it's crater.

One crater viper circles around Liara readying itself to coil around her. Just as it is about to constrict her... *SHWOMB!* a biotic blast forcefully hits the inside of it's mouth above her. She escapes from the viper that has almost coiled around her. Another tries to crush her with it's pointed maw... *BANG!* but it misses the asari just by a foot away. She is sent into the air by the shock wave, but quickly regains her balance.

Ashley fends off one viper in front of her. Another roars at her from behind. *HISSOURAH!* She turns to face the second crater viper, immediately taking out her shotgun and puts a dozen rounds on it's head. All that seemed to do however, was make it even more aggressive. *HIHURROGH!* It nearly clamps it's jaws on the lieutenant. Fleeing from the viper's bite, Ash looks back and continues shooting at the viper's head. Full of pain, the crater viper eventually retreats back into its crater with a head full of bullet holes and bleeding out green blood.

After fending off one viper from his right, Shepard attempts to run back to the Hammerhead, but when he started to run, a crater viper has popped from the nearest crater behind him. It lunges forward at the unwary commander. *OURAGHOM!* Just when he hears the roar behind him at the last minute... *Snatch!* It catches Shepard between it's lower pair of forearms and carries him up into the air making an eerie screech of triumph.

"Oh!" Shepard looses his grip on his avenger the second he gets grasped by the viper.

"Shepard!" Ashley exclaims. Fear and anxiety rushes through her mind, not knowing what to do now. Then she spots an ML-77 Missile Launcher dropped from the geth destroyer the Hammerhead took down. With out further hesitation, she dashes for it.

*HIMGRRGH!* A viper strikes out from her left, but she was too fast for it.

Ashley snatches the missile launcher in hand. She points the weapon up into the air at Shepard's captor. The viper was looking down at the helpless commander in it's grasp, ready to devour him alive.

With out steady aim, the lieutenant pulls the trigger of the missile launcher. *POW!* The missile is shot out. The crater viper opens its maw at the commander. But just before it can successfully eat him... *SHIERJH! OURAGHOO-!*-*KABOOM!* The missile hits directly inside the viper's mouth. It blows up the top jaw, exploding it into a fountain of greenish meat and blood.

Shepard falls out of the creature's grip. He would have hit the ground and loose his life, if it weren't for Liara's biotics to delay his impact. *VORWOOM!*

"Omph!" The commander lands unharmed after being lifted by the asari's boitics. The viper on the other hand collapses dead just a few feet away from Shepard with a mutilated head. *KABANG!*

Liara and Ashley rushes over to help Shepard up. "Shepard. Are you alright?" the asari asked.

"I'm fine." he replies quickly.

*EERRAHHGHH!* All of the crater vipers let out a screech and fall back into their craters. The body of the one Ashley killed suddenly begins to slide back into it's geyser as well even though it's dead.

Shepard and his team seems to be clear of the threat for the moment. Then they hear a very loud hiss of steaming gasses. Turning to the far end of the horizon, about 190 meters behind the tunnel entrance, they see a large cloud of pink toxic gasses surrounding what looks like a giant boulder in a giant sized crater on the slope of a cone shaped mountain. But then, at the next moment, it slowly moves straight upwards. On the top middle of the boulder is a hole with striping patterns extending out of the sides and a single green cyclops eye with a pair of eyelids open up from there. Below it, a gigantic mouth of big grinding teeth bares out. The situation is worse than anyone ever expected. Staring at the trio is a '_Crater Viper Slag Monster Mutant_'.

As the creature begins to growl, four arms with four digits on each one emerge from both sides of it. But the digits weren't fingers, they were the crater vipers Shepard, Ashley and Liara just dealt with. On the second to the right joint of the lowest right arm was the viper Ashley killed limping down lifelessly. On the first to the left digit on the top left hand was the other that has bullet wounds all over it's head by Ash's shotgun. This immense indigenous predator uses its crater viper figures to hunt prey for it as it remains camouflaged at it's stationary spot. The crater vipers share the same stomach as the slag monster, and it could not digest every synthetic materials it consumes, the reason why the vipers had to regurgitate the geth platforms they ate for it.

*BORAGHOOUUHHMMM!* The slag monster bellows loudly that echos out for miles, followed by the high pitched shrieks of the vipers.

Staring at the colossal creature in horror, their focus cuts off when Joker's voice comes through the comm. "Approaching your rendevu point now Commander. Help is underway." The trio look up to see the SSV Normandy coming in from the sky and down to their location.

The slag monster sees it to. It brings its crater viper hands to the ship, the creature will attack anything it catches in sight, even things that are bigger than its own size.

The Normandy's shuttle hatch opens. Shepard and his teammates run for it. The crater vipers were right on their tails. Garrus, James, Tali, Javik and Cortez keep the vipers at bay from them as Shepard's team makes it back inside. The commander knows he's got to get back out there and retrieve that alien pod. There's no way he will be aborting this mission. The only problem is, the Hammerhead is not operational because of the electric pulse the geth shock trooper shot out.

"We need to get that pod out of there and back into the ship." he breathlessly spoke out. "Tali, you get the Hammerhead up and running again. I'll cover you." he gives an order to his wife, who was the only engineer of the squad who can get the M-44's systems back online.

"On it." she replied. Both Shepard and Tali run back to the M-44 to get it working again.

"The rest of you, cover us!" Shepard ordered the rest of his team.

"Hey! Just like the old times Loco!" Vega responds to Shepard's demand.

The pair rushes over to the Hammerhead. The rest of Shepard's team stays behind with in the Normandy, to keep the vipers away from the pair and themselves. The crater vipers kept themselves busy, distracted as the team open fires at their heads and bellies.

Tali opens a circuit cap on the side of the M-44. She pulls out her omni-tool and works away, trying to bring power back to the hovercraft. Shepard keeps the oncoming vipers that have noticed the two away from his quarian wife. Tali desperately tries harder to bring that M-44 back online.

Panic boxes around the pair, fearing they won't last out here in the open for much longer. But after several seconds, the Hammerhead gets a sudden power boost. It's engines power up and the hovercrafts levitates off the ground.

{Systems back online.} the M-44 comes back to power.

"Get in!" Shepard demanded to Tali. The two hop inside just in time. The hatch closes shut.

*OUAAGHEROUGH!* The slag monster roars in rage. Toxic fume clouds spew out of it's enormous mouth.

Shepard starts the Hammerhead, and pulls the alien pod with it.

"Cortez! Get ready to secure the hatch!" Shepard contacts Steve Cortez on the comm.

"Copy that sir!" he copied. With enough applied speed, the Hammerhead safely excavates the pod onto the Normandy's shuttle bay. The hatch closes shut by Steve. A viper gets caught in between, but escapes before the hanger doors can close all the way and before it can get decapitated.

The crater vipers keep attacking, viciously gnarling and clawing the ship's hull. Joker bounces on his pilot's seat as the vipers strike again and again around the nose end of the Normandy.

Knowing the slag monster itself was at a fair distance between it and the Normandy, Shepard gives Joker a new order. "Joker, load the ship's main weapons and take that bastard down!"

"You got it Commander!" He loads up the ship's main weapon: the _Thanix Magnetic-Hydrodynamic Cannon_. A weapon so powerful, it's strong enough to rip apart something as big as a Collector cruiser. "Everyone hold on to your hats. This is gonna get rough!"

The cannons are dispatched below the bridge.

"Why don't you and your Medusa bastards chew on this instead!" The pilot slams a fist on the control panel.

The thanix cannons light up, and a beam of superheated molten metal streams out at high velocities.

Angle View 1: *KASHBOOM!*  
Angle View 2: *KASHBOOM!*  
Angle View 3: *KASHBOOM!* The beam hits the slag monster, exploding it into nothing more than a fountain of meat. The four hands become separated and every last living crater viper is dead. With out the slag monster, the viper fingers die with it. The dust and rubble clears out, revealing a large hole where the creature once stood. The force of the beam was enough to pierce through the hollow mountain.

"Wohoo! Killed it Commander!" Joker comes through Shepard's comm.

"Copy that Joker. Get the Normandy to FTL. I've had enough of this planetoid."

"Aye aye sir" Joker flies the Normandy away from the camp site, leaves the moon atmosphere, and out into space.

This mission became a huge success. The alien pod that has escape the metarex attack is safely intact within the ship, after all these years laying underneath the uncharted world, undisturbed.


	3. The Last Kin

**Episode 3:**

**The Last Kin**

"Another close call, Commander. Any longer and that monstrosity would had this girl (the Normandy) as it's next main course. Good thing her teeth (the thanix canons) can still pack a punch on suckers like that thing. Besides, I've always had a beef with snakes, FYI." Joker tries to make a terrible joke through the Normandy's speakers. Since the destruction of the ship's AI, _EDI_, Joker has become a bit more over protective about the Normandy, and he can't focus on terrible jokes and the ship's safety all at once entirely just like the days before.

As Joker tries to make out his joke through the speakers, Shepard and Tali exit out of the Hammerhead hovercraft. Shepard removes his Helm of Salvation and Tali undoes her helmet, exposing both her face and the rest of her head.

Shepard and his team has just excavated the reactivated alien vessel off the uncharted planetoid and back onto the Normandy unharmed.

"This is bad news Shepard. The _flashlights_ are back, but this time they are on Hell's side again." Ashley brings up the situation shortly after she takes her breather helmet off.

The information the lieutenant gave out stuns Tali. She knew what Ash was talking about. "My people have never intended to bring the geth back. Not with out authorization from the community's regulations."

After the activation of the Crucible,the Reapers the geth race were destroyed along with every synthetic life form in the galaxy. Overtime, the quarians started debating weather or not to bring their creations back to existence. Since both sides assisted in retaking Earth from the Reapers and to construct the Crucible, the community has regained their trust between them and the Quarians. However, because of Citadel regulations of artificial intelligence and the quarian history, the quarians never wanted to take any more chances of being surpassed a second time which would lead to the extinction of the quarian race, and decided to live in peace on Rannoch with out any AI intervention. It is unknown how the geth Shepard and his squad just fought back on the planetoid came back to existence, as there are many other possible fractions through out the galaxy that could do so. The geth were nothing like those before the fall of the Reapers, as they were more perceptive and advanced for combat.

Shepard hesitates for a few moments. A memory flashes through him; a memory about the intelligence's words, the catalyst of the Crucible warning him if he chooses to destroy the Reapers, along with all synthetic based life in the galaxy.

_*Soon, your children will create synthetics, and then the chaos will come back.*_ the Catalyst's words, in the voice of the child he had witnessed die on Vancouver, chanting through his mind. He snaps out of it when he blinks his eyes to focus on the main subject.

"Those geth seemed more _fanatical_ then the ones we fought before." he said.

"There have been no reports of any geth that have been rebuilt in the past four years, and those geth we have just fought were nothing like we've seen before. They were more advanced and more quick-witted." Liara intervenes in the middle of the argument. "Even as the Shadow Broker myself, I don't even know who is responsible for their activation."

"The council is gonna have a word with us again, huh?" Garrus spoke out the obvious once they reach the Citadel, later.

"Right. So, what are we gonna do with that now?" Ashley looks at the intact alien pod.

Shepard thinks for a moment, unti he comes up with something. "Glyph, can you help me out?" he calls out to Liara's information drone, _Glyph_. The drone pops out from Liara's chip that was strapped on her belt.

{Of course Commander. What do you need of assistance?} Glyph asks Shepard the second he pops out.

"I need you to study this dammed thing and find someway to unlock it." he gives out his order to Glyph.

{Will do Commander. Please allow me to give me some time to examine your recovered item. I will notify you when I am finish and tell you how to proceed from there.} with that, Glyph goes off to the alien pod, examining everything he can to find a possible way to unlock it, and reveal what ever secret is inside it.

Javik stands casual at his spot, speaking to the commander, "In my cycle, VIs were not as problematical as AIs. They aren't as self aware. We used them to help us guide and plan ahead during our war with the Reapers. The VIs to this cycle, like your Glyph drone are no different than compared to those in my cycle." This reminds himself of one particular VI he last saw just before entering cryo sleep on Eden Prime during the fall of his empire. It was known as '_Victory_', the VI that oversaw Eden Prime's stasis facility, and the one that told Javik that he will be the voice of the Prothean Empire when a new culture discovers his lifepod.

Glyph finishes up studying the pod. {All done Commander. I have detected an online cryogenic system with in this pod of origin unknown.}

So, as it turns out, what Shepard and the Alliance have uncovered is a cryogenic chamber, meaning there is something or someone inside the pod itself under suspended hibernation. What else could be worse about it now? {There is a circuit hatch on the bottom right side you can override. But doing so would cause the cryogenic functions to compromise in the process. Do you wish to proceed Commander?} Glyph continues.

Shepard cracks his knuckles. "Stand by, people. I'm gonna open up the pod and let out whatever's inside." he announced to everyone in the shuttle bay.

{Very well, Commander.} Glyph hovers back to Liara's belt chip.

Garrus loads up his _Carnifex_ as soon as Glyph authorizes Shepard to unlock the pod's stasis chamber. Nobody knows exactly what is inside the pod itself, so Garrus brings out his weapon in hand just in case something goes terribly wrong.

**. . . . . . . . . . . .**

Shepard steps to the side of the pod. He opens the circuit board. Readying to open the pod, he patches up his omni-tool, working away at the controls to override it's systems.

After just nine seconds, the pod suddenly reacts with a buzzing sound. The circuit board beeps in response and the pod begins to vibrate. *HIsss* Cold hissing air steams out of the side grills that make Shepard react to it immediately by backing up. Garrus readies himself with his Carnifex. Now, the sound of hot ventilation steam is heard with in the glass chamber of the pod. The cryo sleep function has become compromised, and the frost crystals inside melt away by the warm gushing air. Slowly, the glass become clear of the frost.

Seconds pass, and the glass automatically slides open. Steam blinds the spot the second the chamber opens. The commander walks in front as the steam clears up. He looks inquisitively in the chamber itself, and then, to his surprise... he sees it.

Inside the alien pod was a small bipedal figure, still being unconscious from the cryo sleep after all these years.

"_My god_..." Shepard said quietly to himself in utter shock, overheard by the rest of his squad mates behind him.

With two arms, Shepard gently slips them under the deep sleeping alien, and lifts it out of place. Everyone in the room stares in awe about what Shepard has just pulled out of there. Some even made silent gasps when they get first sights of the figure when Shepard turns around to face them.

The alien was around 4 ft. in height. It was wearing what looks like a bluish toned dress with a gold waist strap, gold wrist cuffs at the end of each sleeve, and a pale white skirt on the bottom that resembled flower pedals. The skirt had blue colored tips of the pedal like shapes. It also seemed to wear whitish pair of tights was well as a pair of blue slip-on flats that were almost ballet-like. On the center of the alien's chest was a green oval shaped gem. There were no nostrils or ears present on the face of the alien, but it does have a small mouth and a pair of shut eyes with long feminine-like lashes. Its bare skin on the hands and face was creamy and on top of it's head was what looked like blue hair. But it wasn't hair, but more like large growing leaves in a hair shaped style. Behind the its head were two head leaves that extended outward and the tips pointed and tilted sideways. Perhaps the most compelling thing about this lifeform is that is has a large blooming flower on top of it's head, resembling an overgrown wildflower from Earth.

"Jesus..." Vega said to himself. He was at a loss for words to speak again. Admired by the sleeping lifeform in the commander's arms.

"What is that?" Garrus was the first to ask, lowering his heavy pistol.

With out saying a word, Javik steps right in front of Shepard, looking down at the lifeform. The prothean lifts up one hand and gently places two of his fingers on the side of the unconscious alien's head. His four eyes close shut by the touch, focusing, studying, and recalling what this species is in a matter of seconds.

Javik pulls his hand away from the alien and reopens his eyes. "A _Seedrian_." he recalled.

"What?" Shepard wasn't clear what Javik just said what it was.

"The 'Seedrians', in your language Commander." Javik started again. "Her kind were still forest dwellers of their homeworld in my cycle. They were one of the many primitives we've enslaved. Now, evolution seems to have give them the avatar of humanoid stance. They are _plants_, with a wondrous level of sentience."

So what Shepard just released from it's frozen prison is a bipedal sapient species of plant. The only sentient flora based species he knew before this was the _Thorian_ of _Feros_. The seedrian in his hands, however, is a different story he can't seem to explain to himself at the moment. But what he does know is the unconscious seedrian is a female as Javik did state out the word '_her_' in his last sentence.

"That's a plant?" Ashley said skeptically, not believing that plantae classed lifeforms in the universe can evolve into sapient bipeds.

James makes an inquisitive look on his face. "So then... where did she come from? I mean, I've never hear of something like her before."

Javik was about to read the seedrian's mental experiences when...

*_Breath_* "_Uhhhhugh_..." A breath and a very weak faint moan escapes from the seediran's mouth. Her head rolls side ways and one of her hands began to twitch. Her eyes were still closed, but they've became tensed up before returning to their relaxed state. She is too weak to gain full consciousness.

"She's really in bad shape. I'm taking her to Chakwas." Shepard makes his way to the elevator.

"Shepard." Garrus attempts to stop the commander. "Are you sure it's safe to keep that thing?" he asked.

"She's either a refugee or an accident waiting to happen. Either way, she's is too delicate to reject. I'm taking the seedrian to Chakwas." Shepard's cold blue eyes make a sharp gesturing look for one split second at the turian before reaching the entrance to the elevator shaft.

**. . . . . . . . . . . .**

Councilor Hackett's image come through the QUE comm. "Commander. I assume you have news." he started.

Shepard nods once. "We've found the pod. It was some kind of stasis chamber that belonged to a seedrian."

Hackett is surprised about the good news, and about what Shepard just said. He puts his hand to his chin, pondering for a sec. "A seedrian?" he asked doubtfully. Hackett has never heard of such a species before.

"Yes Councilor. It's a female and she's under treatment." Shepard continued. He has brought the seediran to Chakwas' med-bay to be taken cared of, where she will regain full consciousness.

"So I hear." said Hackett, still pondering. "I must apologize Commander, but nobody in the galaxy has ever heard of a seedrian before, and I doubt the council knows anything about this species."

"Not until now." replied Shepard, crossing his arms.

Hackett was silent for a breif moment before changing the subject of the recent mission. "I've also gotten your reports of geth units dispatched on that satellite, Is this true, Shepard?" he asked.

"That's right Councilor. The geth shouldn't exist anymore by any means. We don't even know who may be responsible for this."

There are so many things wrong with what he just heard from Shepard, and he can't even focus on where to start next in this conversation. There are just so many things that have set off so many alarms in his head all of a sudden. The only thing he could think of comes to mind right away.

"Tell you what," he started "I'll set up a conference with the council once you've return to the Citadel. Return as soon as the seedrian wakes up. Hackett out." his image turns away, before dimming out all that way.

**. . . . . . . . . . . .**

Shepard Stands before the entrance to the med-bay with arms crossed, patiently waiting for Chakwas to come out with reports on the deep sleeping seedrian.

He stood there for nearly one minute untill the doors open away. _Dr. Chakwas_ steps out of the room.

"Shepard." she started.

"Doctor." Shepard acknowledged back. "How's she looking?" he asked her.

"Well, no other major or minor injuries. She's still recovering from from her cryo illness, but I'd say she's gonna be fine when she gets up." The doctor had nothing else to say after.

Chakwas steps aside to let Shepard inside the med-bay to check on the sleeping alien plant on the first bed in to the right. The doctor follows the commander after him. Stepping right next to her cot, they both viewed the sleeping seedrian with the covers up to her chest, but she didn't seem to be having a peaceful sleep for the moment. Her arms and head were twitching and she was moaning very quietly. The two humans quickly understood what was happening. The seedrian is having a dream. But dreaming of what?

**. . . . . . . . . . . .**

_*Dream flashback*_

_One hundred and seventy-one years ago, the seedrian's interstellar space colony cruises through space on a desperate journey, in search of a new planet to colonize. It was massive and elongated. The main hull was triangular shaped with two tail wings extending out above the ship's three engines. Below it, was the elongated base with another triangular body with a four engine behind it. The very bottom of the colony ship had a single but large pointed leg for landing if it ever had to. On the top of the colony ship was the control tower and bridge. Despite being a peace loving race, the seedrian's coolony ship is equipped with defense turrets and nuclear bombing devices that can destroy a planet's surface from orbit. This act of war was only used once when they've escaped their homeworld._

_Several years ago, the seedrian home planet was destroyed when an ecological disaster was preformed when their world's planet egg was purged by the enigmatic Metarex menace due to galactic warfare on the homeworld. Their civilizations of their homeworld were destroyed by orbital bombardment by this refugee colony ship when something much worse was coming about. This colony houses some of the last living seedrians in the galaxy. They're an endangered species._

_Although the seedrians have a language of their own, they still have been able to understand Galactic Basic since their first contact with their enemy before the metarex. In fact, they are able to quickly understand any luanguage from any race they make contact with and stay with it, almost completely replaced their own language. But this has only happened once in seedrian history, as their enemy before the metarex was the first and only spacefaring species they've come in contact with then._

_"Cosmo!" the blue seedrian calls out while walking through one of the hallways of the colony. She is a 'petali', the seedrian term for females, and she is one of the last few females that live on this colony. "Cosmo!" she called out again. The petali is looking for someone._

_In another hallway right next to the side of the cruising colony, one with two long travellators going in both directions, is a smaller green colored petali. At around 8, she is the youngest of the seedrians of the colony ship. Unlike the blue seedrian, she has two little rose buds on the sides of her head instead of a large single daisy, a rose colored gem on her chest and sky blue eyes. Whereas the blue seedrian's gem is green and her eye color being violet, but they both have the same creamy skin color characteristic. In her own time, the green petali has the habit of daydreaming into her own thoughts, one of them being able to return to her clan's former homeworld once their common enemy is defeated, the metarex._

_Standing on one of the moving travallators, the little green seedrian turns her head to her left and looks outside in space through the oval shaped windows. To her, looking at the stars is considered a glorious act to either keep one's mind off things or to burn off time._

_"Little Cosmo! Where are you?" The blue petali walks continuously through the empty halls and intersectons, still looking for someone named 'Cosmo'._

_On the other end of the travellator halls, three other petali stand on the conveyor going the opposite direction of the green petali. These seedrians are on their way the the ship's bridge. They are some of the most important personnel and petali of the colony. Their names are Starla, Chrysanthemum and Daisy._

_'Starla' had dark green hair leaves (two which covered her eyes) with two violet buds on her head and a blue gem on her chest of her pink dress.  
__'Chrysanthemum' was tallest of the three. She was brown as the wood of an oak tree (both skin and hair) with buds that resembled two large pine cones on her head, green eyes, and a large yellow gem on her purple dress.  
'Daisy' had lime green hair leaves with two sprouting flowers on her head, tan colored eyes, and a smaller yellow gem on her chest._

_Stepping on the next conveyor to take them to the bridge, the little green petali starts to pass by from the opposite conveyor._

_"Hi there Cosmo!" Starla greeted her. Cosmo's eyes close joyfully._

_"How are you doing today?" Chrysanthemum asked politely._

_"Be sure to give your mother our regards." said Daisy. "We'll see your later Cosmo!" Daisy waved to the passing green seedrian._

_"Okay. Good bye!" Cosmo waved back to the three passing petali. _

_And just as she turns back to the end of the conveyor, she spots the blue seedrian standing before her at the end, who emerged from the hall to the left. __Cosmo's face lightens with joy. __"Galaxina!"_

_"There you are Cosmo. You had Mother worrying all afternoon." Galaxina said to Cosmo as she steps off of the moving travellator. Galaxina is Cosmo's big sister. She is very sophisticated and pretty straightforward, but she is known to show a worrying deal about her sister and their mother._

_"I didn't mean to." Cosmo lowered her head. "I was playing my 'pretend game' again and I must have forgotten what time it was." Cosmo is a kind and clever little petali, but she does get clumsy at some points._

_"Don't worry little Cosmo. We're all pretty used to your day dreaming by now." Galaxina smiled joyfully with her hand close to he chin._

_Cosmo was surprised to hear this, but she wondered how and why the rest of her clan, including Galaxina, are so used to her self distracting activities now as. She crosses her arms making a skeptical expression to her face._

_"Don't look like that Cosmo." Galaxina knelt down, still smiling. "Let's go see Mother. She'll be so relieved to see you are fine."_

_Her little sister sighs, but she knew she wanted their mother to be happy as much as the rest of her clan on board. She lightens up and follows her sister to the center of the colony where their mother sits._

_The main chamber of the colony was enormous. The high ceiling was lit with a big light, shining over an elderly giant green tree in the center of the room, rooted on a pedestal. This is no ordinary tree, this the queen of the seedrian clan and the mother of the two petali sisters. The petali transform into stationary trees once they've entered the final stage of their lives. This is the seedrians' form of reproduction. The trees will plant and grow as many seeds they can month by month, year by year, not all will survive, but some will eventually grow into little seedlings (the term for infant seedrians), until the trees wear off from exhaustion and by age. They rely on other bipedal seedrians to raise and take good care of their seedlings until they've reached a certain age. The two petali sisters walk up the stairs onto the pedestal, up to their mother._

_"Sorry to worry you Mother." Cosmo apologized to the tree._

_"She was dreaming again, like always." said Galaxina._

_Their mother shimmers endlessly in her stationary spot. She has become relieved to see that her littlest daughter is okay with her oldest._

_"Hey, have you ever wondered if Mother likes to daydream to sometimes?" Cosmo asked her big sister._

_"Well, maybe." she replied._

_"I'll bet she dreams about being back home again, like I do."_

_"Yes." Galaxina agrees. "I'm sure it's a great comfort to her, to hope that one day, we'll all be back there." she looks up at the tree with the feeling of hope inside of her._

_Cosmo knew her big sister very well, but she slightly disagrees with the possibility of ever returning to their former homeworld in peace. "Galaxina, the elders say we'll be journeying through space like this forever." she told her._

_"Not forever Cosmo. Just until we destroy the 'evil metarex monsters' for good." her cheeks become tense. "Only then can we rest, and search for a new planet to call 'home'."_

_Cosmo saw how confident Galaxina was when speaking her sophisticated sentences of hope. It was the feeling of hope that makes her big sister so confident in herself and her people._

_"Come on, let's go. Mother has many errands for us today." Galaxina winked at her little sister, lightening up the mood._

_"Yes." Cosmo replied with enthusiasm. "Oh. Goodbye Mother! See you later!" she says a 'goodbye' to her mother tree just before she walks down the stairs with Galaxina to run errands in the colony._

_The seedrian colonists live their lives peacefully in the travelling space colony which holds the some of the last of their people. The queen tree must be taken cared of if the clan wants to survive through their everlasting journey, looking for a new planet to colonize. Until now, the seedrians must hope for the best. But this will already be the 'end' of their journey. The seedrian race is now to be doomed to quick near extinction by the coming unexpected._

_Not too far away, the wavy walls of a warp hole form. Suddenly, from out of no where, a gold crustacean-like ship warps out from the deforming warp hole *Veroom!*_

_It is the metarex ship. In fact, the ship itself is a 'live' metarex unit. The ship unit was loaded with a countless series of laser cannons all around it's front, including its elongated bottom. On it's crested face are missile launchers that can fire homing rockets at a targeted enemy ship. This is an enormous spacefaring unit going by the name of 'Scarship'._

**_{Scarship to Dark Oak. I have acquired the primary target.} _**_The metarex ship contacts the metarex leader._

_{Perfect! Eliminate Earthia's meddling from my wrath! She must be avenged for what she has done to us! But, I only want 'White Seed' to be spared. She will be our ultimate spy!} Dark Oak, supreme commander and leader of the metarex orders out to Scarship._

**_{Acknowledged.} _**_Scarship obeys Dark Oak's command and pursuits the travelling space colony._

_In Dark Oak's capital command starship, the cyborg leader switches the screen before him to the picture of the Earth-like planet, Mobius. A surprise attack is being plotted, to infiltrate the world to collect all seven chaos emeralds for Dark Oak's dark plot and, at the same time, remove Mobius' planet egg. His green eye orb stares into the screen of the homeworld of the anthropomorphic animals. His right clawed hand balls up next to his cyborg head._

_Out in empty space, Scarship launches a series of homing rockets from it's face. *TWIRRW! TWIRRW! TWIRRW!* The rockets strike at the hull of the colony ship. *KABOOSHM!*_

_"Huahh!" Cosmo is knocked back against a wall by the shock wave of the explosions. When she looks up and out the window, she can see Scarship moving in close for another attack. It's head was enough to strike fear in Cosmo as it's shadow casts over her. She had never seen a real metarex for herself with her own eyes in her whole life before._

_The code red alarm sounds off through out the colony. At the bridge and main control room, Starla, _Chrysanthemum and Daisy look up to see the enigmatic ship unit on screen.__

_"Metarex approaching!" Starla exclaimed._

__"Sectors 3 and 7 have been damaged. We can't fight them much longer!" _Chrysanthemum said hopelessly.___

___"We have to stop them!" Daisy tries to order out. But it's too late.___

___They look up to see a bright flash of light penetrating through the windows. It was the last thing they'll ever see.___

___"SHIRR-BOOM!* One of Scarship's lasers rips through the main control room and bridge of the ship.___

___Cosmo and Galaxina have become separated as they run through the inactive conveyor halls. The metarex ship demolishes the colony with a bombardment of lasers and guided missiles.  
___

___"COSMO!" Galaxina screamed. There's no time to save her little sister now. She must make it to the escape pod hanger right now or become a casualty.___

___Cosmo makes it to the hanger first, but suddenly, an explosion rips through the walls, forcing the little seedrian to stop in her tracks. ___

___*It's too late. The metarex are coming!* she thought.___

___The smoke clears and Cosmo gasps as she sees a synthetic biped blocking her way, turning it's head towards her with two red glowing eyes. It's a metarex trooper. She stood frozen in fear, unable to move an inch with a second thought.___

___"Cosmo, run away!" a voice called to her, but she was too late to react quickly.___

___The trooper lifts an arm up and plunges a tiny needle deep into Cosmo's skull. *THWACKCH!* It was painful and quick, but she quickly regains herself and makes a run for it to one of the pods.___

___As soon as she got inside one, she launches it out into space. "BOWOOM!* The pod leaves behind a tail of white light, and leads it straight for the planet Mobius for an important message to one of it's inhabitant she has heard of and where her greatest journey, and her destiny will begin for her.___

___The colony ship is nearly blown down into nothing but debris, not until another pod escapes from the fire of the bombardment. It's Cosmo's big sister, Galaxina. She was able to get to the hanger just in time by the last minute. But because of the damage the metarex were leaving behind, the pod has gotten burned by the continuous explosions. Both escape pods escape from the metarex assault, leaving them and their destroyed 'home' behind.___

___Galaxina's pod soon enough reaches a nearby mass relay. As she gets near it, her pod transits a small amout of mass energy into the core of element zero. *TISUUUM!* she is flung through space in rapid speeds, until she ends up at another relay in an unknown region of space in the Attican Traverse.  
___

___Still shooting forward with out slowing down minutes later, her pod smashes against a big piece of floating space junk. *BANG-KIRACK!* The impact violently shakes the pod out of control. Galaxina's head is banged against the sides the second she hits the junk, knocking her out cold.___

___It wasn't long before the pod enters the thin toxic atmosphere of the uncharted satellite. Flames surround the pod as it enters the planetoid's skies. Eventually... *SHABOOM!* It craters onto the surface and into a natural geothermal tunnel intersection. Slowly, the power goes off on most functions and into cryogenic mode. It will remain here, undisturbed for the next one-hundred and seventy-one years before it will be first discovered by the Systems Alliance in 2190.___

___*End of dream flashback...*  
___

****. . . . . . . . . . . .****

There was nothing but darkness around the seedrian for the moment. Then, her weak eyes barely open up, with brightness filtering them. They close again. She can hear voices of two different people around her in her recovering hearing. Her purple eyes open again, this time with a bright light from a little flashlight held by Dr. Chakwas. The doctor wavers the flashlight from eye to eye. The seedrian's pupils shrink in response in contact by the brightness of the light and she lifts up a hand to block some of the brightness that invades her purple eyes. She groans as she wakes up, finding herself in the blankets of a cool but comfortable soft bed.

The seedrian pushes herself to sit up, and sees the figure of Commander Shepard leaning in front of her from the end of the bed, looking at her eye to eye.

"Are you okay?" he asked softly.

The seedrian's face widens in horror as if she'd recognized him or someone like him. She begins to panic, using her arms to crawl backwards.

"Whoa, settle down! Settle down!" The voice of Dr. Chakwas shouts out loud. Shepard places a hand on one of the petali's arms, prompting her to calm down.

"Hey." Shepard soothes to the freaked out petali. "It's alright. We're not gonna hurt you. You're gonna be fine."

She seemed to understand. The petali relaxes, and looks into the commander's blue eyes. "You're here to help me?" she asked.

"Yes." Shepard nodded easily.

She looks down to her knees, her eyes looking ashamed to herself. "Oh."

"You can understand our language?" Shepard asked, fascinated on how this newly found species is able to understand and speak Galactic Basic (English).

"Yes. My people studied your language since your kind made contact with us long ago." the seedrian spoke.

Something was not right with what the blue plant based alien just said. But Shepard tries keeps on subject.

"I know you were scared, but we're here to help you. I'm Commander Shepard with the Alliance." The commander introduced himself to the seedrian.

The blue seedrian was relieved to hear she was safe and out of any danger with the friendly humans around her. She 'somehow' recognized the species around her with no clear explanation what so ever to Shepard and Chakwas. She also realized she is the only one of her clan where ever she was at right now, and feeling lonely of her kind for the moment.

"Where am I? What's happening to the galaxy now?" Not only was she wondering and nervous where she is at now, the seedrian was also concerned if the metarex have done anything else destructive in the galaxy. For everyone else, it's been one-hundred and seventy-one years, but for her it's only been only a few hours/minutes, as if everything she'd just experienced before was just yesterday.

Shepard knew there was _a lot_ to discuss over with her and the crew of the Normandy. He looks up at the ceiling, talking to the pilot through the comm. "Joker, get everyone in the conference room. We have something to discuss with our new guest."

"Aye aye, Commander." came Joker's voice.

****. . . . . . . . . . . .****

Up at Deck 2, the conference room was filled with the crew of the Normandy, excluding Joker, Diana, the children, and the caretakers of the ship. Around the table from the left, front and right were Ashley, James, Tali, Shepard, Liara and Javik. Garrus was the last to enter the room, and sat between the commander and Liara. The seedrian sat on a chair at the back end of the table facing the window behind her. She looked nervous at being surrounded by a multi-species crew in one small room, staring at her. The room was silent for several moments until Shepard's voice breaks the silence, asking the nervous petali first.

"Can you introduce yourself?" The Commander asked while leaning forward.

The seedrian bowed her head and looked down to her crossing fingers. "I-I can't tell you." she wasn't soft spoken, but she did sounded very uncomfortable.

"It's okay." Shepard tries to sooth her. "We're all here to help you." he gestured his hand to everyone at the table.

The seedrian still looked nervous. "I'm sorry, but I can't tell you." she refused again. "If I do, I might only bring grave danger to all of you or to myself."

Javik stood up from his seat, and walks to the back end of the table where the petali sat. "No. You won't." he said sternly. Without warning, Javik lunges his arms outward, clutching the seedrian in his hands. The she sat there in utter shock and her eyes widened by Javik's sudden action. Everyone else in the room was surprised to. The prothean closes his four eyes, lowers his head, and reads the seedrian's mental expressions. "I can sense an extreme amount of fear and tension deep within you. A sophisticated, practical and courageous soul you are in your genes. But now you are succumbing yourself to angst. You have become too afraid to confess the truth to move on." He gently lets go of the seedrian and steps back to his chair.

"H-How did you know what I'm feeling exactly?" She asked after she had been read by Javik.

Javik sat in his spot, still staring at the still frightened seedrian. "I can read your experiences by _touch_ and through your genes. I have sensed a lot of distress in you that must be liberated from yourself. Use what determination you have left to let it all go."

The blue petali sighed as she looked back down at her crossing fingers. Maybe it won't hurt at all to talk about her and her problems she had experience prior to her discovery. Her instincts take over to let go of her mental fears. She is ready to open herself up to everyone in the room with her. She lifts her head up and is ready to speak.

"My name is _Galaxina_." she introduced herself. "I was one of the last of my people. But now... now I maybe the last of my kind." sadness crept up to her all of a sudden with those thoughts. Everyone in the room was shocked to hear this, but they kept their expressions to themselves.

Shepard leans against the table. "What happened?" he asked in concern to Galaxina.

The Petali looks down, looking almost defeated. "Long ago, my people were engaged in a galactic war... with your kind... Commander Shepard."

Everyone in the room started to get suspicious with what Galaxina is telling them. Her pod's crash site was dated almost two-hundred years commander and all of his team have learned of this prior to this meeting. Although humans started to enter their first steps into becoming a spacefaring race, they've never developed or discovered the physics of FTL then. Humanity wouldn't have FTL in the next one-hundred and thirty-nine years or so. The 'first known' spacefaring species humanity have ever encountered in their history were the _Turians_ which resulted into the '_First Contact War_', but no records of engaging in a war with a race called the '_seedrians_' at anytime in known human history what so ever.

"That's impossible. I mean... humans never developed FTL or mass effect field sciences by then... around your time, that is." Williams was trying to utterly speak what she was trying to say to the blue petali.

Galaxina started to look confused. "How long was I unconscious for?" she asked the commander, anxious to hear an answer from him.

With a brief moment of silence, Shepard finally answers to her question. "For almost two-hundred years."

"What?" Galaxina was absolutly stunned.

Shepard still wanted to hear more about what she was trying to explain to them. "We can explain later." he said. "Continue what you're trying telling us."

"My people and your kind fought a very dangerous war over my planet, and we were forced to flee from our home. My mother, the queen of our clan helped us escape to space, journeying until the war was over. But some of us chose to stayed behind and fight back. That's when the 'evil metarex monsters' came about after that." her stomach tensed up as she spoke out her story to the crew surrounding her.

"Uh, mind my asking, but what's a metarex?" Garrus asked after Galaxina's story.

Her face began to look shocked. "Wait. You've never heard of... after all of this time?" she couldn't finish her sentence while gesturing her arm sideways towards the crew around the table. "Then... I guess I have to explain everything to you." she takes a deep breath before speaking. "The metarex are machines that have been attacking and taking over planets through out the galaxy. They do this by going by one absolute goal: the termination of all life on the planets they hit and the whole galaxy, by removing their planet eggs. My homeworld was the first planet to be extinguished."

Shepard had no idea why he wasn't surprised when he heard that a race of machines attacked her homeworld when her kind were at war with another race before them. Maybe it was because his wife's kind, the quarians faced a similar experience long ago with the geth. He was also somewhat curious about what the so called 'planet eggs' really are.

"Are they some kind of planetary energy sources?" Shepard asked about the planet eggs.

"The _planet eggs_ are basically the hearts of all life giving planets. With out them, planets are unable to sustain life at any cost and become nothing but barren lifeless rocks floating in space."

Liara is starting to get a blast of memory inside her head. "Of course." she recalled. "Approximately one-hundred and eighty-five year ago, a race of AIs were first reported somewhere in the Terminus Systems. They were refereed to as the 'metarex'. As the years past, sights the machines were reported through out the Galaxy, mostly around the Traverse and the Terminus Systems. Then, fifteen years post their discovery, they've vanished. Nobody in the community knows how or why as they're disappearance was just as mysterious as the protheans 50,000 years ago." Long ago, Liara has learned of the machine entities through education, even though she cared more about the mysterious prothean race through out her own life time.

Galaxina was somewhat surprised and relieved as she listened to Liara's story. "You mean, the metarex are... gone?"

"It is presumed they are." Liara replied.

"I-I don't believe it." Galaxina was in utter shock. "The metarex always seemed unstoppable, even though I knew there was some way." she was so relieved and shocked to hear this news. The metarex were the seedrians' greatest fear in the universe due to their ruthlessness, it's no wonder why Galaxina became uncooperative at the beginning of this conference. "I guess Mother was right all along." she said to herself. "So there _is_ peace to the galaxy then. In a way..."

"If you don't mind, I think we all have a few questions to ask." Liara was inquisitive to hear more about what else the seedrian might want to share to everyone else in the room with a few more questions.

"Um... yes. I don't mind." Galaxina politely accepted the asari's request. "What do you want to tell me?"

Shepard leaned back to his seat. He was the first one to ask Galaxina the first question. "Humanity doesn't remember encountering a species like you before. Where did those who attacked you come from?

Galaxina seemed to be a bit confused for the moment. "Actually, they refered to themselves as '_cascadians_'." she said, confusing everyone including Shepard. "They came from a planet called '_Cascade_'. They wanted to conquer my planet for their own empire. But I don't known too much about them, I wasn't there when the war started. I was born on my mother's ship."

"Then how do you know what we are with out looking at 'them' in the first place?" Ashley intervened right after Galaxina.

"My mother shared all about the cascadians. Her knowledge powers showed us what they looked like, and she taught us their language. It almost replaced ours in our culture, but we did still learn our local language." Galaxina seemed to have a question of her own as well after that. "If you aren't cascadians... then why do you look and speak like them?" she asked to Shepard and his two human companions at the table.

Liara says a logical answer to her. "The galaxy is populated with numerous humanoids that look so alike to each other, like myself. It's no surprise to see another species that looks almost human, or what you may call 'cascadian', Galaxina. But I don't understand how they would even understand English (Galactic Basic) before humans even explored the rest of the galaxy. In fact, no one in the galaxy has any sold records what so ever about the cascadians you speak of." the asari knew the galaxy and it's secrets a lot more since she became the next Shadow Broker five years ago after the _Yahg_, the last Shadow Broker who came before her. But she doesn't know how the human language came about long before humanity uncovered the secrets of FTL. The cascadians, on the other hand, were never reported around Galaxina's time of the galaxy. Were or are they some kind of under covered race, or a species that has gone extinct over time before being discovered?

"Well, I guess your right, um, miss...?"

"Liara." the asari introduced her name to the seedrian.

"Okay, um... thanks Liara" said Galaxina.

Shepard had something else in mind to ask. "What else can you tell us about the metarex?"

"Not too much more about them, other than being vicious and will attack just about anything in their sight. My mother and a few others of my clan know of their origins, but they never shared it to me or my little sister. They though it was information that would be too tragic for us to hear." Galaxina's head lowered down.

Ash was surprised to hear the seedrian had a sibling. "You had a sister?" she asked.

"Yes... I did. But..." Galaxina couldn't find the words to explain.

"Are you alright?" Shepard asked in concern.

"No." her voice cracked. "I... had a... a sister... my clan's and the galaxy's only hope. We were both born and raised on my mother's ship. I still feel hope she made it..." Tears began to build up in her eyes. "But... my mother and every one else I knew and loved are... are all..." She couldn't hold her tear back any more. They streamed down the corner of her eyes. "They're all _dead_!" her words exploded out of her mouth. Her hands covered her eyes in an instant the moment her words escaped. She proceeded into hard, hurtful sobs.

Even with out asking, the commander and his crew knew what has happened. Galaxina's clan on her mother's ship was attacked and slaughtered by the metarex's inferno, but only she and possibly her little sister survived. The other seedrians, including her mother weren't so lucky. Everyone was struck into a speechless state. They all felt the strong emotions of sadness from the crying seedrian. She is alone of her kind, and her only help now is Shepard, his team, and the rest of the crew on the Normandy to comfort her.

****. . . . . . . . . . . .****

Up in Shepard's Private Quarters, Galaxina laid on Shepard's bed still crying for over five minutes, with her face buried in one of the pillows. Tali sat on one edge of the bed while gently kneading a hand on Galaxina's back. Shepard sat on the opposite edge from his wife. They both watch the crying seedrian hopelessly while trying to comfort her.

"Shepard?" Tali began softly. They both met their faces with concerned looks. "What are we going to do?"

Shepard took a long breath and looked back down to the deep saddened girl. "I don't know."

He has no idea what exactly they are going to do with Galaxina. In the meantime, all they could do is sit and wait until she relaxes. The council would definitely want some questions from or about the seedrian once the Normandy heads for the Citadel, but how much else will they and the crew of the ship get from her?

Soon, Galaxina's sobbing stops. She's is now in a deep sleep again. One could imagine how difficult this was for her and for everyone on the ship during the conference minutes ago.

"I'll go check the kids." started Shepard as he rose from his spot. Tali nodded to him which gestured him to go. The quarian will stay here until Galaxina wakes up from her nap.

****. . . . . . . . . . . .****

With the acceptance of Shepard's young twin hybrids, _Deck 1_ of the Normandy has gone through upgrades for children exclusively. To the very right side wall from the elevator when one walks out, there is a second door that will lead to the children's bed room. Inside, is a small but not too small sized bed room for two. The ceiling, the left side wall and on top of the wall opposite from the door had glass windows to look outside. From the corners left to right on the opposite wall from the door were child sized bed for the twins. Karel took the bed to the left and Rea took the other to the left. On the wall to the right was a fish tank just like Shepard's, only smaller. In it were a school of three _prejek paddle fish_, three _striped dartfish_ from _Kahje's_ oceans, and two _gooberfish_ from _Naboo_, the pre-spacefaring _Gungan_ homeworld and a human colony in the Earth Systems Alliance Space and the Mid Rim Territories. Apart from having an N7 carpet in the middle of the room, plushies were scattered around the floor such as a stuffed volus toy, a plushie hannar, a plushie grey reaper which ironically looks like a squid with a smiley face at the bottom, and several other fun toys to play with.

It's been nearly half an hour since Shepard left his cabin. He sits against the wall with the fish tank, watching his two adorable birthday twins playing a game of pretend in imaginative space, where a reaper attacks and chases a play-sized SR-2 replica. Karel was the one with a reaper plushie with four yellow eyes (Harbinger) and Rea was the one with the Normandy toy escaping from Harbinger.

"PEOW! PEOW!" Karell mimics the reaper's lasers.

"Watch out!" Reas playing with the Normandy replica in her arm playfully shouted. "Harbiner is coming!"

The children laugh as well as mimicking noises and quotes while they play pretend together. Shepard chuckles to himself as he watches his children play along. Just as things seem to be relaxed for about half an hour long, the doors open and walking in were Tali and an awakened Galaxina. Shepard stood up the moment he saw them walk in.

"Mommy!" the kids said cheerfully, at the same time, noticing Galaxina.

"Karel, Rea, this is Galaxina." Tali introduced the new girl to the twins. "Galaxina, this is Karel and Rea." She introduced her children to the seedrian next.

"Um, hi." Galaxina shyly greeted and waved at the twins, forcing a little smile to her face.

"Don't be shy. Say hello." Shepard encouraged his children to greet the Normandy's new comer.

"Hi." the twins both said and waved their hands. Their parents can already tell the twins are a little bit shy to see a new person.

Galaxina was somewhat amused. She knew Shepard and Tali are two complete different species, but some how have kids. "Are these your children?" She asked to make sure.

"Yes." Tali giggled.

"But... how can two different species have children?"

"It's a long story." Shepard hastily said, not wanting to go further into the subject. The children weren't bred naturally, they were instead developed by alien experimentation held by salarian and hanar scientists that would make both Shepard's and Tali's DNA proteins compatible. In the end, Tali carried them insider her and gave birth to them nine months after this illegal but totally worth it act.

Galaxina walked forward and kneeled down at the twins with a smile. They slowly backed up by two steps, still nervous to meet the seedrian.

"Don't be frightened by her. Come on." Tali tries to cheer up her kids.

Karel steps toward Galaxina. Then, he extends his arms and places them around her waist, and she hugs him back. Both Shepard and Tali started chuckling at their son's unexpected move. Rea jumps in and joyfully hugs the seedrian next to her brother. Galaxina drops onto her back, laughing joyfully with the joining twins who have also become overjoyed. The twins' parents chuckle even more as they watch their adorable birthday children play along with Galaxina, the newest recruitment of the ship.

****. . . . . . . . . . . .****

Later, Galaxina exits out the elevator to Deck 2 of the ship by herself after a playful visit with the commander's children. Deck 2 is the _Combat Information Center_, or _CIC_. Just before the seedrian is the galaxy map and to the right side terminals is _Specialist Samantha Traynor_. Hearing Galaxina's small foot steps behind her, Traynor turns around to see the Normandy's newest crewmate.

"Oh, hello there." said Traynor to Galaxina. She walked over to the seedrian girl and knelt down. "Are you okay?" she asked, concerned for her feelings as she she did see Galaxina crying with Shepard, making their way to the elevator earlier.

"Well, I'm okay. For now." Galaxina replied to Traynor's question.

"Comm Specialist Traynor." the human introduced herselfto the seedrian, shaking one of each other's hands. "What's yours?"

"Galaxina."

"Cute name." the specialist complemented.

Galaxina giggled. "Why, thanks."

Traynor smiled. "Welcome to the _SSV Normandy SR-2_, Galaxina."

"So, this is a spaceship." the seedrian guessed.

"Absolutely." answered Traynor. "Can I show you around?" she asked the new comer.

"Oh, um, no thanks Traynor. I'm fine." Galaxina responded to her request.

"Oh okay. Let me know when you do. I'll always be at this spot."

With that, Samantha returns to her terminal and Galaxina continues to explore the ship. Walking towards the hallway to the bridge, the human crew members around her turn their attention to her. Yes, it's getting her uncomfortable, but she just went on with out any more questions asked.

The doors before her open up to the bridge. There, she spots a pilot's chair, occupied by someone sitting on it, with a blue 'SR-2' cap on his head. The pilot heard the doors open up and the sound of small foot steps. He turns his chair around and is surprised to see Galaxina in front of his view.

"Hey. You must be the new kid." the pilot responded enthusiastically.

"Why yes, sir."

"The name's _Jeff_. But everyone call me '_Joker_'." the pilot introduced himself to the petali.

"Um, it's nice to meet you Joker." she took and shook one of his hands. "My name is Galaxina." she introduced her name to him.

"It's great to see a new face around here. Pretty crazy to in fact, just like in the old days." Joker recalls. "Is there something I can do by the way kid? You might be lonesome wondering around here by yourself."

"No. I'm fine sir." Galaxina quickly responded. "Just checking the place out."

"Right. Understood kid."

Galaxina wanted to see more of the ship, but prefers to be alone for the moment due to her remorse for the loss of her loved ones nearly two-hundred years ago. "I think I should get going." she told Joker.

"See you, kid." Joker turns his chair back the the control panel before him.

****. . . . . . . . . . . .****

Exiting the elevator to _Deck 3: the Crew Deck_, the first thing Galaxina saw is a tall, wide wall lit by two light below it. It had an Alliance symbol on the top middle and numerous name tablets on both sides. On the center of the wall was one that said: 'David Anderson'.

_*Are these the people of this ship who died?*_ Galaxina thought to herself.

Clearing that thought out of her head for right now, Galaxina turns to her left, heading down to the starboard observation deck at the end of the hall. The auto-doors open for her. She steps into the massive room with a large wide observation window opposite from the door. On the sofa to the left were Ashley and Vega sitting together with arms placed around their shoulders. They look behind as soon as the doors opened to see Galaxina walking in.

"Hey there." Ashley said calmly to her. Galaxina walks next to the two sitting humans who were gazing at the stars outside. "How're you feeling?" Ash asked her.

"I'm alright." the petali said while making her way to sit between Ash and Vega. The two made space in between for Galaxina. She sat on the empty spot, looking back and forth at the humans. "Whatcha doing?" she asked them both.

"Well, just staring at the stars and uh... just hanging out with her." said James, referring to the human woman dressed in blue who is sitting him right now, Ashley.

Williams snorted at Vega's comment in a laughable manner. "You have sure have a way with that one, don't yah?"

"Ah, it was nothing at all." James rubbed the back of his head, slightly blushing.

Galaxina was starting to think if these two have more than friendship to each other. "Um, are you two... 'together'?"

The unexpected question brings a small grin to Ash's lips with a slight giggle. Vega on the other hand, was completely caught off guard. Maybe he shouldn't have said that last part of Galaxina's answer.

"In a way, yes." Vega replied, sounding a bit more confident to the petali's question.

"Oh. Uh... I'm sorry if I interrupted you two." Galaxina felt guilt in her, wondering if she had disturbed their private time together before she went into the room.

"Nah, you didn't interrupt anything." continued Vega. The petali was relieved to hear that. It turns out these two humans really are together in a relationship.

In fact, these two humans are also soon to be a married couple in the next two weeks or so. Their wedding will be held at the city of San Francisco, California, planet Earth; the founder city of the Systems Alliance's federal sister, the '_United Federation of Planets_'. The two humans first hooked up four years ago during a party that Commander Shepard held on the Citadel. Of course, they were both intoxicated at that time. Now, their relationship has grown to the point where they'll soon become a lovely couple.

"Um, I've never got both of your names." spoke Galaxina.

"James, you can call me that or _Vega_." he introduced his name to her. "And to your other side is Ashley, my beautiful mujer." he continued, introducing Lt. Williams' name to Galaxina and finishing his sentence with a spanish word. Ashley giggled at the moment right after she heard it.

"You are such a heartbreaker, aren't you Mr. Vega." Ash playfully teased him back. Both humans chuckled. Ashley calms herself down. "Sorry." she said, still lightened up by her little comment towards Vega.

"Oh, it's no problem." Galaxina said with a considerate smile. She actually found herself to be very comfortable with these two, despite the fact that one may find them to be... 'a bunch of flirts of the Normandy'.

"Hey, you have any problems bothering you, just talk to one of us." Vega informed the seedrian with helpful advise as soon as he calmed down. He knew Galaxina was mentally troubled all day since she woke up and knew that she needed help of some kind in the future to get her feelings out.

Galaxina smiled with pleasure. "Thanks James." the next second, the trio stared back at the window before them, gazing at the stars just as Galaxina's sister did before them.

****. . . . . . . . . . . .****

Minutes later, Galaxina passes by the mess-hall to the left side path. At the center, couple other members of the crew tend to their own time around the rectangular table. Neither of them notice Galaxina though. She continues walking to the end of the path at another door just behind the kitchen area. It opens up for her.

{Greetings newcomer.} Glyph the info drone welcomes the seedrian and nearly startling her.

In the room, Liara and Javik turn around to see that Galaxina has entered in when they heard Glyph speak out.

"Galaxina." Liara started. She was glad to see the seedrian girl looking a lot better than before.

"Hi there Liara." Galaxina was in relief to see her again, but somewhat nervous when she saw Javik in the same room. Her voice was a mixture of relief and nervousness.

"You have seem to overcome most your fears Seedrian." Javik said sternly. "But I can still sense sorrow in you, mourning for the death of your family."

Galaxina had nothing to say at her nervous state with Javik.

Liara walked over to her. "I'm sorry if you are uncomfortable with Javik, but you'll like him soon enough." she knew the seedrian was nervous with him since he snatched her back at the conference room to read her mental expressions which made her more creeped out. Liara walked Galaxina to her bed where she sat up on with her hands placed on her laps. The asari sat next to her left.

"Are you alright, Galaxina." she asked. Liara understood how emotional her situation was back at the conference and she wants to make sure she is fine for the moment. It had only been almost an hour after Galaxina's emotional breakdown.

"Yes, I'm fine. Thank you." Galaxina smiled back with pleasure. Something else comes up to her thoughts. "This ship seems to have more than one species on board: Human, Quarian, and what are you Liara?"

Liara smiled back. "I am an _asari_, the most respected race in the galaxy. We are the founders of the Citadel Council and one of the most important members of the hundreads in the community."

The seedrian found her information very intresting and he knoded with amusment. She was also wondering what species Javik is. "What about you, Javik?"

"A _Prothean_."

Galaxina' started to have an shocked look on her face. "A prothean? I thought they disappeared about 50,000 years ago."

"Except one survived." he replied.

"He is the last of his kind." chimed in Liara after Javik. "We found him under cryogenic stasis four years ago." Javik was found during the Reaper Invasion in 2186 on Eden Prime, the planet where everything had started from 2183 to now. He was first investigated by the conspiratorial pro-human group, Cerberus. They would've gotten away with the living prothean, if it weren't for Commander Shepard to intervene in the first place.

"Wow. I had no idea I would meet a prothean in person in my whole life." Galaxina was absolutely amazed.

"You knew about the protheans, Galaxina?" asked Liara.

"Well, of course. But only what my mother told me." Galaxina started out. "On my home planet, there were underground ruins of an ancient race that existed 50,000 years ago. It was said to belong to a race that called themselves 'Prothean' according to the archives my people discovered before my planet's destruction."

"In my cycle, my empire colonized your world and enslaved your primitive ancestors to become part of our culture." Javik told the seedrian about how her kind were involved with the Prothean Empire during Javik's cycle.

"Hmm, I see." said Galaxina. "But what happened to your kind Javik?" she asked him.

His face became tensed with hatred the moments he answers her question. "My empire was at war with a race of machines we called the 'Reapers'. It all started long before I was even born. They were slaughtering and corrupting billions of my people. I was a soldier, serving my empire by any means to protect my kind and to avenge the Reapers."

Galaxina felt terrible for him after hearing his story. "I'm so sorry to hear that."

"The Reapers dreadfulness is no more now. The commander saved over a trillion lives in this cycle. He is a tough human, and like me, fought until the last living reaper in the galaxy has fallen."

"You mean, Shepard killed the 'Reaper race'?" Galaxina was shocked to hear this. She was standing in the ship of a super hero who just saved the galaxy from a synthetic threat.

"Yes. Much like how the metarex you speak of is no more by unknown reasons." the prothean replied to her.

"I didn't know that." Galaxina was still stunned by the information about Shepard. "It also sounds like you and I have in common to each other." she related to each other's past experiences with synthetics that are presumably extinct to the galaxy and being the last on their own kind.

"You also have a pity for those who lost what they have loved from the past."

Galaxina agreed with Javik. "Totally."

****. . . . . . . . . . . .****

Later, Galaxina makes her way to the Normandy's _main battery room_ just between the Shadow Broker's room and the sick bay. Liara has told her of another friend, Garrus, a member of the _turian_ race who makes his quarters there. To the sides of the hallway where she walks in were a series of eight escape pods that would be used for quick escapes from the ship when needed. She hoped if little sister, Cosmo, had made it to one of theirs on their home colony. Buet, it's been over one-hundred years since the attack. What could have possibly happened to Cosmo after all these years with Galaxina sleeping through all that time that has passed?

Reaching the door to the main battery, it opens for her, and inside it was the turian calibrating away on his console before her. He turns his head to see who just entered in.

"Oh, it's you." he realized it was Galaxina. At first, he was expecting Shepard or one of their friends walking into his quarters. Usually the commander does that. "You okay?" he asked her, making sure she was alright after her mental breakdown.

"I'm fine." Galaxina gave a shy smile to her lips, but she really is fine for right now. "You must be Garrus." she guessed, know he was the only turian she had seen on the ship.

"Yeah, that's me. And you are Galaxina?" Garrus confirmed himself then asked to make sure what her name was.

"Mh-hm." Galaxina nodded back. She walks further into the room next to Garrus by the console he was working on.

"What brings you down here kid?" the scar-faced turian asked politely.

"Nothing, I was just exploring the ship and meeting everyone." as a new comer of the Normandy, the seedrian wanted to get used to her surroundings of the ship and meet most of the ship's crew so that she could get used to them all. So far she has seen one half of the Normandy and much more is left for her to see.

"I see." Garrus understood. Something else catches his thoughts at that moment. "You said you had a sister back in the conference. Is that right?"

"Yes. Her name was '_Cosmo_'. She was very sweet and kindhearted. She was my mother's last child to plant. Mother told us Cosmo would be a protector of the galaxy and my clan, but I'm not sure if that has been fulfilled yet." Galaxina looks down to her knees.

"Being out for almost two-hundred years means a lot of catching up to do and there, doesn't it?" said Garrus. The seedrian nodded again. It's clear already the metarex are no longer seed in the galaxy for almost two-hundred years, but Galaxina isn't sure if all of that was Cosmo's doing. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. Who knows?

"She and I never saw our homeworld. It was destroyed long before both of us were born." she continued.

"Pretty penitent to hear that kid. You sure you're okay?" he asked her again.

Galaxina looked up to meet his eyes. "I'm fine Garrus. For now." she sounded like she was about to explode again. But she wasn't. "Why is that you ask about my sister?" she wondered.

Garrus takes in a breath. "I have a sister to. Her name is _Solana_. She's been with the turian military on my homeworld for quite some time." he returns to his console while still taking to Galaxina about his own sister's background. "When the Reapers hit Palavan, we lost all communications with her for several weeks. Luckily she and our father made it out alive. Sol made it out with a broken leg though."

"Oh. That sound bad for what happened to her. Is she alright now?"

"As long as she can still wield a gun in her hands, she's just fine. Her leg has been fixed up after the war. Right now she's serving _General Kitarus's_ squad in the Attican Traverse. It's not the most stable of Citadel space, FYI. Pirates, Hutt gangsters, criminal mercenaries, all that kind of stuff that would really kick you from behind if you aren't too careful."

"If only Cosmo were here, the we would both be together again." Galaxina wished.

"I feel the pain Gal." he patted a hand on Galaxina's shoulder. "And I pray for your sister's safety if she's still out there."

The seedrian's face lightens up. "Thank you Garrus." she thanked his kindness.

"Appreciate it kid. Now if you'll excuse me, I shall get back to my calibrations." he politely ended the conversation.

Galaxina, with more hope inside of her for the sake of her little sister, walks out the door of the main battery room and they automatically close up behind her.

****. . . . . . . . . . . .****

Galaxina exits the elevator onto _Deck 4: the Engineering Deck_. She has entered in the middle of an intersection of hall going both left and right. Both lead to closed but accessible doorways (due to the green colored omni-locks on them) and one other door on each direction on the elevator wall. Before her is a wall of windows that shows the inside of the shuttle bay/cargo hold floor. To start things off, she walks to the hallway to the right to the end of it.

She just enters the _starboard cargo room_. The moment the doors open up for her, she could hear a female voice speaking inside the room.

"Breaking news: Commander Shepard and the SR-2 where I'm standing now have just uncovered a stasis pod of undiscovered origin. Found on the moon of an uncharted planetoid of ravenous alien snakes. Claimed to belong to a plant of humanoid stance, the Commander says the floral lifeform inside it is what's called a 'seedrian'. Returning to the Citadel now for analysis to the pod and the seedrian to the council and the citadel's top scientists for further research. More news will be posted shortly as soon as more information is acquired by the Alliance and the council."

It was a human women, dressed in a black and white Alliance leather dress and coal black open toed high heals. Galaxina walks into the room when the woman talks to the hovering camera before her. She seemed oblivious of the seedrian's presence as she talks to the camera. The, when the woman was finished, she spots the seedrian when her eyes turn to her direction.

"Oh." the woman was startled to see her in her stadium/room. "Why hello there. You must be the seedrian Shepard spoke of."

"Yes. I'm Galaxina." the seedrian introduced her name to the human woman.

"_Diana Allers_, with the Alliance News Network. I think you can help give me information." Diana introduced her self to the newcomer. This reporter of the Normandy loves documenting reports through the network, '_Battlespace_'. She is now exited to gather more info from Galaxina now that she is with her in Diana's studio room.

"What kind of information?" Galaxina asked curiously.

"Well, like where have you and your pod come from, what your planet of origin is and or information of your kind." Diana gave out examples for her up coming report plans.

"Um, maybe another time. I'm just checking out the place." the petali responded. She is somewhat a bit agitated about being around her for that moment. She wasn't even ready for anything to be documented from her now.

"Oh, alright. Let me know when you're ready." Diana acknowledged to her.

The seedrian nods and decides to leave the studio and see much more of the ship.

****. . . . . . . . . . . .****

Though she hadn't explored much of Deck 4, Galaxina decides to see more of _Deck 5: the Shuttle Bay_. She steps out of the elevator and onto the last floor of the Normandy. The shuttle bay was huge. To the right side of the colossal room was a UT-47 Kodiak drop shuttle hanging just below the ceiling. In the middle was a runway where the M44-Hammerhead stood with Galaxina's escape pod behind it. To the right of the runway was a small gym where Vega would usually keep in fit and another Kodiak Shuttle at the far end. Just in front of her were two stations, one being the armory to the right and the other being the shuttle pilot's work quarters. The human that stood there at his panel was the shuttle pilot himself.

"Um, hello." Galaxina began. The human took notice.

"Hey there." he said to her with a smile of encouragement. "You're the one who came out that pod." he pointed out to her pod behind the M44.

"Uh-huh." she nodded. "I'm Galaxina. And you are..?

"The name's _Steve_, but just call me _Cortez_." he introduced his name to Galaxina and shook her hand. "Where did you come from? I mean, before we found you." he asked.

Galaxina was getting uncomfortable again to that specific question, so she decides to sum it up with a simple response.

"Um... it's a long story, Cortez." her face had a slight pain of emotion to it.

"Oh, um... okay, I understand." Cortez understood the seedrian. He nodded a 'yes' to her.

Galaxina changes the subject immediately. "So, what do you do here?"

Cortez gave a slight chuckle. "I'm the pilot of this bird you see up there." he gestured to the Kodiak shuttle hanging above the right side of the runway.

"Oh, I see." Galaxina nodded back. "You call it a 'bird'?" she wondered.

"Well, it's just a figure of speech, if you know what I'm talking about."

"Of course I do." she replied.

Stave was amazed by the seedrian's understanding of the human language. "Wow, I had no idea you would understand me and, I guess anybody on board."

"Well, it's because my clan met a race that spoke the same language as you do, and now it's become part of our lives."

The pilot was still absolutly stunned to hear about this. How can a race they have not seen before able to speak and comprehend a language that has not yet been galactic widespread yet hundreds of years ago?

Before anyone else had something to say, Joker's voice come though the entire ship. "Approaching the relay now and on towards the Citadel. And if anyone knows where the new kid is, tell her to meet the commander up at Dock number 2, he's looking for her."

Galaxina looks back at Cortez who gestures his head to head back to the CIC, and without saying a word she obeys and heads for the elevator. She presses the button and the elevator doors close up before her.

******. . . . . . . . . . . .******

Meanwhile, else where in space, the unknown star fighter and the geth dropship that unleashed the geth army on the uncharted planetoid trek their way to an unknown region of space where another nearby mass relay is located. Inside the fighter, a blue organic skeletal hand works away on a trapezoid-like shaped control panel. Above it was a oval shaped digital screen with a blue glowing hue tone to it that fills the room around it. The alien's hand scrolls down the screen until it gets to a communications channel. *Berrip!* The alien selects the screen after selecting the first.

*Berrip!* A video channel pops up. Showing on screen was a figure in a pitch black cape with a high collar going around the back side of the neck line blocking the head but the tip of a black head crest viewing from behind. The background around it was dark and gloomy with only weak bluish hue light penetrating through a few wide windows. The figure turns around to face the screen.

The figure was a _human_ male, at around his late 60s. His skin was light tan and his short beard that went around his chin and side burns was taupe but mostly dark grey in color. His eyes were hidden behind a long extended visor that flashed a yellowish chartreuse light crossing the bridge of his nose and ending next to the outer sides of where his eyes would be. Extending from the middle of it was a silver steel crest, curving halfway above his head. His was seemingly bald at first looks, but he wasn't. He had simply just shaved it as his head was covered by little, tiny grey scalps starting to grow from it. His suite was a mixture of black and dark grey leather and hard armor. On his shoulders were a pair of large silver metallic plates, stretching as halfway down the length of his arms. His gauntlets were black and silver with only the top half of the skin on the fingers and thumbs exposed. He was crossed armed as he looked at the screen with the unknown alien in view.

"Hirghhirh, tikrkitkkt rhtcictlectr-ikktuir." (trans: My lord, we have reports on the signal of the unknown world.) the alien spoke in a language of a series of clicking and screeching noises. The human lord however, seems to understand it very clearly. "Tihti 'nitckktki' ghtitc-ieirtitkk itht itch tirrtict. Hitgti iruetirgh huhitirkrrk, irghi-rhtirk tikitikrghti reieptk. Toktirkn gtirig toritct." (trans: The 'Normandy' you speak of came before us. All geth ground units are offline, with only an amount of analysis retrieved. Establishing the data to your omni-tool now.) The alien's skeletal-like hand taps away on the panel, tansfering data to the human's omni-tool.

On the other side of the screen, where the human lord stands else where in the galaxy, he opens up his omni-tool and catches the transferred data from the fighter ship. He turns to his opposite direction to one of the room's computer stations. He types away on the wide keypad just below the desktop.

*Brleep!* Filling the room with a large bright light from the 'big' wide screen going online, the lord opens his omni-tool again. This time, transfering the data to the active monitor. Afterwards, he studies the analysis until a picture shows up of the seedrian's escape pod. At first, it didn't seem like much to him, but when he selects the chamber on the flat screen, the picture of Galaxina pops up beside it with a scanning effect to it. Seeing the innocent plant girl on his front screen before him, the human lord brings his right hand to his bearded chin, pondering about the pod subject on screen. A plan finally hatches in his brain.

"Well then," he started in a smooth demonic voice. He turns his head around to face the alien on the communications screen with his lips forming a tiny sinister grin to them. "there's much to be done."


	4. Citadel

**Episode 4:  
****Citadel**

Deep in the Serpent Nebula of Outer Council Space, the SSV Normandy SR-2 comes through one of the many mass relays of the thick, dense nebula. *TWOOWWM!*

In the cockpit of the ship, Commander Shepard and Galaxina, the newest crew member of the oh so mysterious Seedrian race, stood before the pilot's chair

"Just in time, Kid! I'm just about to bring this girl to the Citadel right now." said Joker, the moment he notices Galaxina's presence.

Both her and Shepard stand behind the ship's pilot seat where Joker sits and stare out at the windows. Galaxina's face widen up as she looks into probably the most amazing thing she has ever seen in her entire life.

Just outside, in the Widow System, was a colossal space station of five enormous arms, and a tower in the center base ring. This is the '_Citadel_', the heart of galactic society and the community. The five arms are the station's '_wards_' that can close shut into an indestructible impregnable cone-shaped shell. The ring, known as the '_Presidium_', holds the embassies of numerous species as well as the '_Citadel Tower_', the station's council chambers.

About four years ago, the Citadel was transferred to Earth's orbit by the Reapers, the creators of the station, to protect it. Some civilians were killed, while others were lucky enough to survive with their lives. When the Crucible dock in the center of the station, it activated only when the commander was found by the station's intelligence, the catalyst for the crucible. The Crucible was simply an energy source to power up the intelligence. The weapon itself would only activate if interacted manually once docked. The intelligence discovered the nearly dead commander, healed him partially, and allowed him to make a choice to end it's purpose to preserve all advanced organic life in the galaxy, cycle by cycle. With three difficult choices it presented to him, only one choice was an inevitable that cycled through him repeatedly, ignoring the pros and cons of the other two. Instinct was what drove him to fulfill his mission. The choice was to '_destroy_' the Reapers, but that would also obliterate all AI interference through out the galaxy in a temporary state. The geth, droids, mechs, all of them, including the Citadel's intelligence as well as the Normandy's AI and potential crush for the ship's pilot, 'EDI'. It was the only thing that convinced Shepard immediately that would bring better to the galaxy. The Citadel was heavily damaged in the process along with all other mass relays through out the galaxy. But eventually, as time passed, day by day, week by week, month by month, all relays, with the exception of two, and the station were repaired by a galactic wide rally which rallied up the Citadel and non-Citadel races to work together as one. Once the heart of galactic society was functionally repaired, the Citadel would be manually returned to the Serpent Nebula after a long journey back. It may have been fast under Reaper control, but a bit slower when not. However, due to the extreme damage it took during the fall of the Reapers, there are still a couple uncommon areas on the station that are still under construction, even with the help of numerous races across the galaxy.

With the expansion of rallying the galaxy together for support in the aftermath, months after the fall of the Reapers, the numerous races from almost every corner of the Milky Way have joined the community to help expand it to make it a better galactic wide government. Though many have already been part of it, the station and the community now recognizes many other uncommon races that station themselves here, and they've supported the community even more so since the slow recovering aftermath that resulted the fall of the Reapers.

The pair at the bridge stare endlessly at the marvelous station before them and the Normandy. It was even bigger when they got closer and closer to it. On the inner wards were thousands buildings that held a countless number of civilians of dozens of races across the Milky Way. The Citadel is like one gigantic city, divided into fives.

"It's.. so beautiful." said an amazed Galaxina.

"Welcome to the Citadel, Kid. Capital of the community and the 'catalyst' of saving the galaxy." said Joker from behind his seat.

The petali was still staring up at the station, admiring the five gigantic arms that surrounded the ship.

_*Who could have built something this massive?*_ she wildly thought.

"Citadel Control, this is SSV Normandy SR-2, requesting permission to land." he spoke out, contacting the station for permission to dock.

"This is Alliance Tower, please stand by for clearance Normandy." a man's voice came though the comm.

At one of the Alliance towers, the human male (who is African American with a handsome shaved face) in an Alliance outfit and hat who spoke out stands before the omni-control systems, being operated by two molusk/worm-like individuals with eight tentacle-like arms from left to right of him. They are '_Twins_' from the planet '_Centauri B_'. They both have bodies that are sluggish-like with eight grayish green arms with two digits extending out and around their tops. On the middle of their tops was a single elongated eye-stalk with one yellow colored eye.

After a brief moment, the officer spoke out again. "You are clear to dock SSV Normandy. Permission granted to land at '_Docking Bay number 47_'."

"Roger that Alliance Tower. Normandy over and out." Joker acknowledged back through the comm.

The pilot flies the Normandy to the '_Zakera Ward_'. It enters the air pocket barrier and slows down, docking at Dock 47. Once it has stopped completely, three magnetic couplers from both sides extend outward and magnetize themselves onto the wings and engines of the ship. *Katoom! Katoom! Katoom!*

**. . . . . . . . . . . .**

Exiting out the auto-doors of '_Citadel Security_', abbreviated as '_C-Sec_', Shepard and Galaxina step into one of the Zakera spaceports that's closest to the Presidium. The spaceport was huge, filled with numerous shops and restaurants. This isn't the same exact place that Shepard visited before five years ago when temporarily working for Cerberus on this particular ward, but it was still a place for Shepard to bring memories back to when he knew this Citadel again just after his revival.

Galaxina on the other hand was absolutely amused. She had never seen a space station this massive before in her life, and was astounded to see numerous species on all sides of the station around them. There were numerous crowds through out the station mainly consisted of the most important traditional Citadel races such as Humans, Asari, Turians, Salarians, Elcor, Hanar, Volus, and occasionally some of the more uncommon but very recognizable races; the Krogan, Batarians and the Quarians. The Citadel is an extremely busy place for just about anything. Galaxina was also admiring the view that domes her in awe, looking in almost every direction.

*Bourough!* A hammerheaded biped passes by Shepard and Galaxina. It was an '_Ithorian_', one of the many races through out the Galaxy to support the reconstruction of the Citadel and the community for the past four years. In the old days, many other races such as the Ithorians , the Drell, and even the Vorcha were not so common, if not, 'rare' to be seen anywhere on the Citadel. But, with the expansion of the Galaxy's round up, they've become more common, and many more embassies were placed on the station's Presidium to share their interest and support for everything in not just Citadel Space, but to the entire Milky Way itself.

To their front right, Galaxina spots two C-Sec officers, one being a human and the other a turian, in a conversation with a short plumped suited humanoid client known as a _volus_ and some big giant dark purple jellyfish-like creature with two humps on it's back and blue bioluminescent markings around it's body, standing just a bit taller than the C-Sec officers on all six tentacles. Galaxina has also been told of some of the other races by the commander as soon as they've docked such as the Salarians, Volus and Krogan. But of course, she did not learn of some other races they may see on the station in their own time, so there are a lot more to see on the Citadel such as those jellyfish-like creatures.

On the other side was a food court with another volus as a chief. He may not look like chief as he did wear the traditional dark brown and white enviro-suit.

*HIst* "Yup!" the chief flips a '_rhynth beef_' paddy with is spatula to the plate of a human women customer's tray in hand.

*Clomp!* From out of no where, a blue crested krogan bumps in the way and gobbles up the paddy in one bite. The grey crested reptilian krogan chuckles as soon as he eats it. "Heh heh heh hehh!"

**. . . . . . . . . . . .**

After two minutes of walking through the metropolis of the Citadel, Shepard and Galaxina come across a terminal arching away from them. It has a green light on top of it, indicating it is on and operating. And behind it was an asari, but she looked a lot different than the other asari. Her whole body was made out of bluish electric charging energy, with several blank patterns all over her body from head to toe. Between the empty patterns was a series of streaming orange colored energy pulses. What the commander and the seedrian are looking at is not actually the real thing. It's a holographic projection of the Citadel's interactive virtual intelligence. It's name is '_Avina_'.

^Welcome to the Zakera Ward transportation hub number 09 Commander Shepard, the Citadel's top ranked spaceports for the gathering of over a dozen races of both Citadel and non-Citadel. Note that many stores here have been expanded for the interests of many new races that discover the Citadel each year. Citadel Security has also increased by 30% for the concern of civilian safety on the Citadel.^ said Avina in a sweet feminine programmed voice. ^Citadel Security has announced a new race that has just entered the Citadel less than ten minutes ago.^ she continued.

Shepard and Galaxina looked at each other, knowing what Avina was referring to. "Are you talking about Galaxina?" the commander asked.

^The girl of undetermined origin is with you right now. Citadel Security has confirmed her to be a 'Seedrian' by your approval, Shepard.^ Then she speaks to the petali next to the commander. ^Hello Galaxina, welcome to the Citadel, the center of galactic civilization of Citadel Space. My name is Avina.^

Shepard steps up to the VI as she speaks. "How do we get to the Citadel Tower from here?"

^Public transit shuttles are available on the far right end of the transportation hub.^ Avina gestured her hand to the right direction.

Knowing it was all they needed for right now, Shepard decides to log off of the VI. "That's all I need."

^Please speak to me again if your guest requires any approval for assistance on the Citadel. Have a good day Shepard.^

**. . . . . . . . . . . .**

While walking down the long hallway, and Galaxina admiring the surroundings of the ward around her such as the many shops, decorations such as wall fountains, holographic plants and the neon colored lights of every shape and size, the pair are approached by an exited civilian running towards them from their left. It was a human woman with light skin, raven colored hair in a short trendy hairstyle, dark caramel eyes, and in a colbalt violate colored dress with an additional rectangular patterns and the smooth fabric on certain areas such as the arms and torso were dark violate and black, who in no doubt to Shepard is an overjoyed fangirl of the 'Hero of the Galaxy' himself.

"Oh my god! Your commander Shepard!" the woman exclaimed in an exited but matured voice tone as soon as she caught up to them.

"That's me." Shepard acknowledged back.

"Oh my god, this is such an honor to finally meet you!" the woman continued, walking along with the pair. "Survivor of Akuz, first human spectre, hero of the Citadel, and bane of the Reapers! You are the most feared human in the galaxy! A legend, who never gets crap from anyone! Oh, my husband will never believe I have finally got to meet you!."

While the fan woman states out most of Shepard's most memorable acts, Galaxina gets glimpses of other races that pass by. A large grey quadrupedal civilian with black and red clothing and sleeves on the back, legs and arms walks across lumbers across the path from behind them from Galaxina's right to Shepard's left to one of the shops. And to her right again, is an asari civilian and a female '_Andorian_' (a blue skinned near-human '_Federation race_' with silver white hair and two antenna whose empire did not become an associate member of the Citadel itself until early 2188) staring at the commander himself, both in awe.

"It's Shepard!" the andorian civilian said to herself in amusement.

"The name's '_Heather_' by the way. Mind if you give me your autograph?" the fangirl asked excitedly, smiling joyfully at him.

Knowing it would make her and her Husband happy, he pulls out his omni-tool, and gives his signature on Heather's tool. "Here."

Heather receives his autograph on her omni-tool, and as soon as she sees it, she ecstatically screams with joy.

"Thank you so much!" she gave the commander a quick but hard hug. "My husband will be out of his goddamn mind when I show him this!" she continues exclaiming. "Good luck out there Commander!" she salutes to him and takes off to where she originally came from.

Galaxina was amused about the whole situation Shepard was in.

"Wow, I didn't know you were that special." she said as they continue walking. Yes, she has heard from Dr. T'Soni that he saved the galaxy from the 'Reaper Race' and he would be popular among all people. But she didn't think he was '_that_' popular among all others in the whole universe.

"It's all about having a big responsibility Galaxina. I'm just making everyone in the galaxy proud." he told to the petali.

The next minute, they arrive at the transit shuttle corridor where they will take a cab to take them to the Presidium, and the Citadel Tower.

**. . . . . . . . . . . .**

In the skies of the Citadel, and passing through the enormous metropolis that covers the entire inner ward, Shepard and Galaxina have taken a ride on a transit shuttle cab on it's way to the tower. They are in a traffic sky lane that will take them to the end of the ward and on to the Presidium. The seedrian looks out the large windshield, admiring much more of the city of the Zakera Ward.

The buildings and the lights of air shuttles in the traffic lanes make the cityscape of the citadel around them extremely beautiful to Galaxina. She had not seen such advanced civilization like this for herself in all of her life. She has spent the last several years living in her mother's colony and never left it for her own safety sake. The star, '_Widow_', shinned in front of the station's open arms, making the cleared up skies dark and almost night-like. Most of the time, Widow is blocked behind the gas clouds of the Serpent Nebula, making the skies bright with white lighted overcast clouds.

**. . . . . . . . . . . .**

The Presidium, the center ring of the Citadel, was huge and breath taking in the inside. Up to 10 kilometers wide and home to several government offices of the Citadel Council, it is considered to be the Citadel's elite powerful individuals due to the numerous races who have represented their embassies on the station.

The interior of the Presidium was one single ringed shaped habitat landscaped by green grass fields, trees, large lakes of 100% '_purified_' fresh water, and a large artificial sky on the center top of the ceiling. The sky is one big light with a a brief day-night cycle of six hours of darkness. The air of the interior also has an artificial gentle breeze as one would feel on a garden world like Earth. The lakes serve as a reservoirs, independent from the storage tanks on the wards, and house a series of jetting fountains for decoration. Birds, such as alien pigeons, also make themselves home here on the Presidium. The birds in here resemble the Earth's pigeons, with the exception of the pair set of feathered crests above their eyes. The sides of the interior housed several departments such as government offices, shops and of course, the embassies, where the races of the Citadel represent themselves to show their interest and support.

Shepard and Galaxina cross a bridge just over one of the lakes to the other side of the Presidium. But the seedrian pauses for a minute just before they reach the other side, and walks next to the railing to her left. She is awe of the Presidium's beauty. She stares at one of the decorative fountains, feeling the breeze of the cool air, and listening to the birds chirping and the water splashing from the fountains.

Shepard steps next to her right. "Enjoying the view, Galaxina?" he asked.

"Mother told me and my sister that our world was green, peaceful, and lively, before it was destroyed." Galaxina replied back. "I could imagine our planet looking almost exactly like this." he voice had a hint of sorrow in it.

"You wish to see your homeworld?" continued Shepard.

Galaxina looks at him. "Yes. But I don't know if it's going to look like this again anymore."

"It's never that easy." he said with a small hint of sorrow in his voice, but both continued admiring the beautiful view of the Presidium.

"My clan and I wished we would one day return to our homeworld once the metarex were destroyed. But I don't know what's happened to it now."

The commander looked down at her. "You okay?" he asked in concern.

"I'm just thinking about my clan's planet and my family and friends. I grieve for all of them deeply." Galaxina replied, looking at Shepard.

"They must have been good people." said Shepard.

"They were, Shepard. Mother and my clan raised me and my sister. I took care of Cosmo the most when she was born." A question come up to Galaxina after talking about her story on her colony ship. "Did you have a family Shepard?" she asked.

Shepard gave a quiet sign before talking. "Sometimes there are questions you don't need an answer to Galaxina." Information about Shepard's family was a personal weakness to himself. Nobody, not even the love of his life (Tali) knows too much about it. He had no true family. He was orphaned an grew up in the dangerous streets and alleys of New York City, until he became 18 and was brought in to the Alliance. Even then, nothing has changed for the better for him, personally.

"Oh... I'm sorry."

Shepard gently patted a hand hand on her head. "It's okay." he replied, forgiving her. They both turned to continue looking at the fountains of the Presidium's lakes.

Just after that, Galaxina spots something on the other side of the bridge, looking at the opposite direction from the pair. It was another one of those tall standing jellyfish-like creatures they saw back on the wards. But this one was colored in a bright red hue rather than dark purple like the first one they saw.

Galaxina walks over to the jelly. The commander hasn't noticed her departure. Stopping and standing next to the jelly's right from behind, it hears and senses someone coming up to it. They alien turns around to the seedrian girl. She looks up at the jelly when it turns to her.

^Why, hello there little one.^ it spoke in a ghostly but very polite manner in a male voice. ^This one is grateful to see a new species here. This one welcomes you to the Presidium, the heart of the Citadel.^ Each time the jelly speaks, the luminescent markings around it's body flash then disappear after every sentence is says.

"I'm grateful to see you to." the girl gave a shy, nervous smile. "What are you?" she asked.

^This one's species name is the '_Hanar_', and this one's face name is '_Zymees_'.^ the hanar introduced himself. ^This one wonders if the little one is enjoying her visit here on the Citadel.^

"Um, yes. I am." Galaxina said confidently. She then crosses her arms with confusion. "Why are you saying 'this one' instead of 'I' or 'I'm', Zymees?" she asked.

^It is the hanar society's way of speaking with other species. Hanar language was taught by the '_Enkindlers_', to whom many other species refer to as the 'Protheans', the creators of the hanar people.^ Zymees explained. ^We exclusively refer to ourselves in the first person with family relatives or intimate mates. It is however, that we rarely do so with other races we are with. But we still do find it egotistically, from time to time.^ he finished explaining.

Shepard walks next to Galaxina from behind. She took notice. "It's just the hanar's way of communicating, Galaxina. You'll get used to it." he told her, looking down at the seedrian who looks back at him.

Zymees jiggles with noticeable excitement. ^Commander Shepard! This one is most honored to see you before him!^

Again, here is another civillian who knows of Shepard's heroism acts. "And you are.."

"His name is Zymees, Shepard. He was just telling me about the hanar language." Galaxina cut in between their sentences.

^This one is flattered by this little one's polite interference.^ Zymees said. ^Is this little one with you, Commander?^ he asked Shepard.

"Yes." he gave one small nod back.

^Then this one is even more grateful to see you and the child together.^ said Zymees.

Just then, Shepard's omni-tool beeped. He opens it, reads the message, and sees that the rest of his crew, who went on after him after departing from the Normandy, are waiting for him and Galaxina at the tower already.

"We should go. The Council's waiting." Shepard told the hanar.

^This one wishes good luck to you, Commander. And have a pleasant day, Galaxina.^ Zymees says good bye to the pair.

"Good bye Zymees, and thank you!" Galaxina waves at the hanar before departing away to the other side of the Presidium.

After just a couple more minutes, they've just reach the elevator that will take them up to the tower, and the Council Chambers.

But both Shepard and the seedrian are totally unaware they are being watched. On the nearby bridge, by the Relay Monument/Conduit, where no one was around, a strange looking human civilian, dressed in light brown, has been spying on them with a pair of binocular-goggles. He lifts them up from his head as soon as he looses sight of the pair entering the Citadel Tower elevator. The human was a male with ghost grey hair and pale skin. What was strange about him was that he had some kind of lumpy growth on the sides of his head behind the ears, and his grey ghostly eyes were wild looking.

He turns the opposite direction and opens his omni-tool. He is about to contact someone... his boss.

**. . . . . . . . . . . .**

The inside of the tower was enormous and marvelous. It is the epicenter of the Citadel, where the Citadel Council resides. The inside of the tower was loaded with pink leafed trees and beautiful spouting fountains of pure fresh water. In the air above, two 'huragoks', biological supercomputers created by the historical Forerunners, hover over the Council Chambers, making a series of whistling and purring noises. This is where all the decisions the Council makes take place.

Shepard and Galaxina walk up a series of stairways leading to the Council's audience chambers. And indeed, the rest of Shepard's squad (Ashley, James, Liara, Tali, Garrus, and Javik) are already there waiting for the pair to arrive. With them, is humanity's newest ambassador, '_Roland __Everett_'. He is a Canadian man in his early 40s with blue-grey eyes, and dark brown head hair that matches his full short beard and mustache. His ambassador uniform was similar to the former Udina's, only his was dark green with dark navy blue colored details on it.

"Commander, I see you've brought in your new friend." Everett said, looking down at the plant based girl. He bent down to her. "A seedrian, are you not?" he asked her.

"Yes, sir. I'm Galaxina." she introduced herself to him "What's yours?"

"'Ambassador Everett'." he shook her hand. "It's a pleasure to see you." he said with a nice smile.

Galaxina smiled back. "Thank you."

His gentleman smile switches to seriousness the moment he turns up to Shepard. "I have received your mission reports from Councilor Hackett, Commander. The Council and I are not satisfied with what we see." he said. "The good news is you and your crew recovered her pod for the Alliance, and uncovered an entirely new species (refering to Galaxina's kind). But it just gets better from there. The Geth came back and they've tried to take that pod from you." continued Everett.

"The geth on that planetoid weren't like the ones we fought before. There is no explanation to where they've come from." answered Shepard.

"Understood Commander, but what ever defense you have to say, I don't want to hear now. Save it for the hearing. The Council is waiting for you and your crew up there right now, and they don't like long delays." Everett turns to the stairs to lead up to the Council Chambers. Shepard, Galaxina, and the rest of the crew follow after him.

**. . . . . . . . . . . .**

At the chambers, the four council representatives stand before the platform where Shepard and the rest stand, across a windowed gap in between the two groups. The star, Widow, shimmers behind a large scaled glass window from behind the Council. From left to right, across from Shepard and his group, were Councilor Hackett, Sparatus, Tevos, and Valern, each with their own respective terminal speakers in front of them, before the railing guard.

Along the walls of the chambers was the audience of multiple species, including humanity. They have gathered here to listen about what the subject of this meeting is about.

**T: **"We have read your reports of your excavation mission in the Eurna System, Commander. But our most concern is the geth attack during your excavation."

**V:** "These geth you speak of were nothing like the ones you or anyone else in the galaxy have fought before, is that not correct?

"The geth we fought on that satellite were more advanced than before, and we don't know where they came from." replied Shepard.

The crowds began a course of concerned mumbles and gasps. They could not believe the geth have returned with hostility. Sparatus briefly looks at Hackett at the end of Shepard's sentence.

**S:** "But do you have any evidence to show who or what may be responsible for their return?"

Liara steps up next to Shepard. She pulls out her omni-tool. "We have captured video footage from the M-44." she said.

Then, a large scaled video screen showing their raw footage of the excavation mission in the middle of the gap setting between Shepard's group and the Council. The video was set just after they've safely extracted Galaxina's pod outside of the moon's caves, and it was muted of any sound. The first thing they see is the view of the wrecked camp. One second later, the unknown freighter swooping in and stopping just above the soon to become battlefield and the footage pauses. The ship was facing sideways pointing to the right direction. The video was blurred, but the ship was still in clear enough view.

Councilor Valern had his three figured left hand against his chin.

**V:** "The ship's design is nothing we've seen before at all. There's no such known model of a ship like that in any Council fleet, Alliance Navy fleet, anywhere!"

**H:** "Shepard, do you believe whomever brought the geth back is the work of an undiscovered race?"

Hackett is known to show extreme loyalty towards Shepard, even as a councilor. Both know they could trust each other in no doubt.

"I don't see why not." Shepard crossed his arms. "But this is all we've got."

**T:** "We are currently assuring preparation for any further geth attacks in Citadel Space, away from the borders of the Terminus Systems. But we can not assure the ship you saw was the discovery of a new race, not yet."

**S:** "I agree. As Guardian of the Galaxy you are Commander, I expect you to provide us more evidence to conclude this theory of yours."

"The ship you saw defiantly belonged to an unknown faction in the galaxy. If they've launched an attack in the Traverse, it will happen again in Citadel Space." responded Shepard.

**H:** "Councilor, I respect in Shepard by all my words. We have not yet discovered a full percent of the galaxy yet. And have my doubts the attack was planned by any known race we know of."

Valern interrupts in defense.

**V:** "But remember, these are geth we're talking about. If they were have any unknown origin, it would defiantly be in the Terminus."

Tevos takes her turn to speak.

**T: **"The Terminus Systems is our best guess for this moment. Until we know of what we are dealing with, we will commend that all starship traffic shall take extreme precautions when entering the Traverse."

Everett steps forward. "That's it!? You're just gonna sit your skinny asses down and hope for the best!?"

**S:** "Or, we could trigger a galactic war with the Termunis Systems, Ambassador. The attack of the Eurna System was at the very edge of that region, and we don't want to attract any unwanted attention, not just for finding a once dead sworn enemy! Every represented species on the Citadel understands that, ambassador!"

The ambassador sighs and steps back with this hand against his head in annoyance.

The Terminus Systems are lawless from Council regulations, so there are many warfare acts between various races that take place within the region. Although conflicts in the Terminus are made by the more common races of both Council and Non-Council/Citadel Races, more notably '_batarian criminal groups_', over 90% of the time, the two known less common but very dangerous region local races are what the Council general try to avoid secondarily which are the '_Arquillians_' and the '_Sedonian Empire_'. Both races which are known to preform genocidal war if provoked. Even after the fall of the Reapers, the Terminus hasn't changed their ways of living and thus making constant crimes to this very day.

**V:** "The other thing we've read from your reports, Commander, is that you've uncovered an individual of an entirely newly discovered race from the pod you've brought back with you. Is the individual in your presence right now?"

Valern points to the petali girl who has been standing next to Shepard for the whole time.

"She's a Seedrian." Shepard answered.

The seedrian steps forward in front of Shepard. "Hello Councilors." she greeted them with a shy wai gesture then crosses her fingers together. "My name is Galaxina. This is a pleasure to meet you."

The Council was already seemingly amazed by the way Galaxina is able to understand the human language (English) which has become the galactic basic language in decades.

**V:** "This is incredible! I am surprised to the way you are able to speak the human language with no complications."

"I have learned the human language before Shepard and his friends have found me."

**S:** "And by that, what do you mean?"

"Long ago, my people were in a war with a race called the Cascadians. We've learned their language, and has become part of our lives for generations."

**V:** "And who are these 'Cascadians' you speak of, Galaxina?"

"The Cascadians are what I thought were the humans when he (Shepard) found me. They look and talk exactly like them. I was almost positive they were them, until they said they haven't developed any space drive at all at that time. And I am very confused."

Suddenly, the crowds from the sides of the chambers come to life with mumbling and shouting with shock, amazement and doubt.

*Woouurrgh!* a wookiee (a tall furred bipedal spacefaring race) makes a moaning/growling noise in disbelief with its arms raised above its head.

The councilors stared at each other for the moment. Hackett brings a hand to his chin in a pondering and stressed manner.

Galaxina started to feel ashamed due to the crowds reactions. She felt heat of embarrassment flush through her cheeks and chest. She looked down to her heals.

The crowds continue to make a racket, not until Sparatus taps on his terminal for the speaker level to full volume.

**S:** "Order!"

Sparatus shouts out loud. The noises from the audiences die down.

**T:** "Galaxina, do you wish to share more information about your people, your planet of origin, and so on?"

"I'm sorry Councilor, but I don't have a planet to live on anymore. It was destroyed long before I was born." sadly said Galaxina.

Everyone in the audience started mumbling. The Council was at silence until Valern breaks it up.

**V:** "Where these 'Cascadians' the cause of the destruction of your homeworld?"

"No. It was a race of machines known as the metarex. They were the ones who destoryed it." she answered.

Now everyone in the audiences and the Council were really startled by the girl's answer.

**V:** "Metarex?! They've disappeared from the Galaxy almost two centuries ago!"

Shepard stands up for the seedrian. "Her pod's crash site was dated around that time. She's the last of her kind."

"No, that's a maybe. My sister is probably still out there somewhere." interrupted Galaxina.

All four councilors looked at each other with out saying anything else after Galaxina. Then after several seconds of silence, Tevos prepares for one final speech.

**T:** "Commander Shepard, for your discovery of Galaxina, it is advised that she visits a medical professional for any communicable diseases, and a counselor for her seemingly young age the next day." she looks down to the girl. "I'm sorry Galaxina, but this is the best we can do to help you for the moment. The next time we see you and Shepard, we will try to provide you with more support. This meeting is adjured."

Sparatus, Tevos, and Valern turn to walk out the chambers. Hackett stays behind to watch Shepard, Galaxina, and the crew of the SR-2 leave the chambers as well.

This meeting with the Councilors hadn't gone well as Shepard had hoped to expect, but this is what they've got help the petali girl, at least for right now. It's already getting late in the evening, past his children's bedtime. But something tells Shepard he's gonna be up for a while tonight... a 'long' while.

**. . . . . . . . . . . .**

Later that evening on the Citadel, with Galaxina and Shepard's family in their apartment resting for the night, the Commander himself walks straight to a gentleman's club known as '_Goddess __Haven_', a bar styled club where one would go inside to have a drink and enjoy the sights of the exotic female dancers. It is located on the '_Kithoi Ward_' in the central area of the arm in the upper areas. It is a newly opened club founded in 2189, roughly three years after the fall of the reapers. The music of this attraction that's playing right now is a revised tune of '_Chora's Den_', a gentleman's club that closed it's doors shortly after the attack of the capital reaper ship, '_Sovereign_' in 2183. His crewmates Garrus, James, and Joker are said to be having their own time at this entertainment attraction, and Shepard has decided to join them to let off some steam from their previous meeting with the Council nearly two hours ago.

As Shepard gets closer to the club's gates, he could already hear and feel the beat of the music drumming from outside. He enters through the doors of the club with the digital sign with the name 'Goddess Haven' above it. He enters inside, followed by a wave of heat and the smell of both alcohol and fresh leather.

The neon blue, pink, and red colored lights fill up the room. On several sides of the club, there were small dance stages lit by a single neon red light, each with a exotic female dancer dressed only in a single rose red leather dancer outfit and heals. The majority were asari dancers, but there were also human and '_twi'lek_' dancers as well. There is also an additional second floor just above the ground floor. Bars were stationed on both sides of the club, and the far end corners. The far end center was the stairway that leads up to the second floor.

Walking through the hall of several drunk men, Shepard tries to keep an eye out for his fellow crewmates. To his right, a skimpy human woman bartender serves a turian guest a turian brandy shot. To his left, a lone asari dancer who has accompanied two off duty ship pilots who were turian and a '_duros_' (a spacefaring red-eyed and green-skinned humanoid race). Then, on one of the many round tables were Garrus, James, and Joker to his further left.

"Aye, Loco!" Vega waved a hand to the commander.

Shepard takes the empty seat between Garrus and Joker. "How's everyone doing?"

"Never better, Shepard." said Garrus. "You almost gave the Council another fit back there. Maybe a little bit closer to that point, but they still took your word for the kid."

"Where is she now Loco?" Vega asked.

"She's sleeping at the apartment." he answered. Galaxina, along with the commander's kids are having a night's sleep at Shepard's place after a long day.

Joker takes a sip of his '_Quad Kicker_' drink from his glass. *Ahh.* "I still can't believe the Council are still a bunch of jackasses after giving you the honor of a god, or no... guardian? Was it? But, I wouldn't say that to former admiral Hackett, 'cause I love that old man."

"They're just politicians." answered Shepard. "It will take a while for them to collect themselves before they help Galaxina more."

"Well shit. The Council always gives you the benefit of the doubt Commander." Joker takes a breath after feeling the effects of his spicy drink taking into him. "But, I'm glad they are able to do something for the new kid. I'm getting kind of worried about her, I'm not gonna lie."

"I'm more worried for her to, Joker." Shepard replied to him. "But I'm surprised her history is very similar to the quarians."

Garrus squeaks in. "Well, the quarians built the geth. Nobody, not even Gal, knows who built the so called Metarex."

"So, the Council only helps those who did't build synthetics that would threaten them?" asked Vega.

"Believe me, I've known much of the Council's motives since my C-Sec days, long before I first met Shepard."

A skimpy human waitress brings a glass of '_Rojo Loco_' before Vega. He takes a sip from it before speaking again. "Sure, but how would you know their attentions do any good? They don't seem too sensible."

"Of course they don't," replied Joker "but they are probably getting a word from Hackett as well."

"Hm? Maybe you should just knock yourself out with that drink of yours?" Jokingly insisted Garrus.

"Maybe a gallon of turian brandy for you turian boy." Joker chuckles silently during his joke.

Everyone on the table chuckles for a few seconds.

"It's gonna make my knees or my face hurt like hell." continued Garrus.

"The next thing you know is I'm dragging your drunk asses back home." Shepard squeaks in.

"Good to see you like the old Shepard we know, Loco." said James.

"No comment here." the commander said.

While the four boys enjoy their time off duty at the table they sat at, a redheaded human dancer with lime green eyes and smooth pale colored skin steps off a stage to the right of the main floor, making her way to the stripper's locker room. Neither her nor Shepard's party notice each other as they pass by. This woman is actually one of the Normandy's former crewmen five years ago during the Collector threat of the Terminus. She was first recruited by Cerberus as the yeoman of the newly SR-2, along with Karen Chakwas, Joker, and two other Cerberus engineers, much to their ignorance was just a cover up to hide the Illusive Man's true motives.

Making her way to the other side of the club, pass Shepard's party table, the woman enters through the entrance where the locker room is. And just as she did seconds later, something flashing behind the glass of the doorway catches Shepard's attention. As he focuses on the door away from his party and just before his view from his seat, he could almost make the distinct and very faint noises of gunfire coming from the locker room.

"Shepard?" Garrus attempts to grab his commander's attention. But he didn't respond.

Inside the stripper's locker room, there were dancers of both asari, human, and twi'lek, all laying dead on the cold steel floor. They've been shot by plasma charges and all have burns on their stomachs, sides, backs, and heads. On the far left from the entrance is a shower room roughly the same size as the locker room itself.

"_What do you know of Shepard, scraggy little human?_" said a deep, loud mature voice.

"What? What are you talking about? I'm not with Shepard anymore!" cried the human dancer who just entered the room.

"_Humph! __Cleaver one!_" spat the voice again.

The girl was cornered to a side, surrounded by a trio set of green smooth scaled legs. The middle ones were much thicker and way bigger than the other two pairs.

"Please! I don't know! I swear!" begged the human dancer again.

A three digited hand from the large figure in front of the girl grabs her by the right arm and tosses the human to the middle of the floor. *Klabang!* And a silver gigantium polished hand held rifle-cannon is placed on the helpless woman's jawline, threatening to shoot her dead. It is held by a ten foot tall green reptilianoid bipedal species. It was muscular, had a small short snouted head with four all-blue menacing eyes, and a pair of eye stalks sprouting through the cavities of it's shoulders. The smaller humanoids were just a stall as a person. Their faces had small tentacles covering the mouth line, a pair of blue gill like appendages on their cheeks, and wielded pistol sized pulse weapons.

"_Enough begging! __We want answers to what you know of the Commander Shepard. Our lord wants to know the whereabouts of the girl. He want's to get the power he wants! He promised us to win war with 'Nakkadans' with his orders to us! You will not be any use if you don't give answers now!_" the bigger alien thug continued.

While the large alien continues threatening the dancer, a pair of stalking legs quietly sneak up to one of the smaller aliens. The sound of an omni-blade is hear by everyone in the room, and then...

"_Omfh!_" a hand grabs the shoulder of one of the smaller alien figures, and brings it right down to the ground... *Kshak!* "_Ouurrgh...!_" and an omni-blade is stabbed through the victim's stomach. The alien limps dead and releases it's weapon.

Immediately after the attack, Shepard, who has sneaked up and killed the creature from behind, retrieves it's pistol (an '_adorian crossbow_').

Both the dancer and the alien thugs were shocked by the sudden assault, and the commander with the crossbow drawn out, proceeds to open fire with lightning pulses

The shots hit the larger alien thug, and it takes cover behind one of the sink pillars in the room. The smaller one was stupid enough to stay in with in shooting range as it tries to shoot the commander. An electric charge was shot at it's head and drops dead.

The bigger one pulls out it's omni-tool, signaling even more thugs. The far away closet door to the end of the room opens and two more smaller gilled aliens pop out.

*_Khoraough!_* growled one of the smaller thugs.

Behind the nearest and first pillar, Shepard and the dancer take cover from the firing from the thugs' plasma charges from their pistols and riffles.

"Shepard!" said the human dancer in surprise, recognizing her former Commander of the Normandy.

"We can talk later, '_Kelly_'." Shepard tells her.

"_It's the Commander!_" shouted the bigger thug.

With the adorian crossbow, Shepard peaks out of cover and shoots the larger thug.

*_Grrghloughgh!_* it grumbles in pain before jumping out of cover and launches a grenade illuminated by a blinding white flaring light.

"Grenade!" shouted Shepard. Both him and Kelly jump out of cover just when the grenade explodes into a burst of energy.

*BOGOOM!* the shock wave of the explosion knocks the two humans off their heals. The sinks of the pillar began spewing fountains of water from the damage the grenade has caused.

Shepard quickly lifts his crossbow up and continues firing at the larger thug's face. *PZARP! PIZARP! PZZP!*

*_Blarghch!_* the thug makes a high pitched dying growl before falling down on it's back. Shepard and Kelly now have two more thugs to worry about.

*TWOMG* the sound of a sniper rifle fills the room, and at the same time, a bullet hits the small thug to the far end of the room on the side.

The two humans turn to the exit of the shower room to see that Garrus has joined the show with his '_M-92 Mantis_'.

"Maybe a little louder next time, Shepard." Garrus jokingly said to his commander.

The three move out of the shower room as Shepard tries to shoot down the last remaining thug.

*PIZZP!* The blast hits the creature on the head, and killing it instantly.

Just as they exit out of the shower room and into the locker area where the bodies of numerous dancers now lay, they all hear a loud clanging sound coming from the ceiling. *Bang! Clang*

Then, the ceiling tiles above collapse in the middle of the room. *BANG-CLASH!*

Another, larger thug has broke in. This one was just like the larger creature they fought in the now flooding shower area. Only, this one has pitch black eyes instead of blue, and in it's grasp was a shotgun that which Shepard immediately recognized. It was a '_geth plasma shotgun_'.

*_Oroumh!_* the thug growled, rearing it's geth weapon at the party.

The shotgun was already powering up, and a fully charged trio of pulse orbs are shot out of it. *KIRMH!* Shepard and his two friends jump out of the way of the oncoming fire.

Shepard fires at the thug, but at the same time, it activates a purple omni-shield. This was a surprise to Shepard, because the shield was just like those the geth used on the planetoid in the Traverse.

*TWOMG* *_GHOULRLGHH!_* With perfect aim, Garrus has shot one of the thug's eye stalks, stunning the creature and forcing it to deactivate it's omni-shield.

*PZZP! PAZZP! PARZZP!* Shepard shoots at the thug once it's shield is out. Eventually, the creature takes so much damage, it fall dead to the ground.

The commander immediately activates his ear piece comm. "This Commander Shepard. I need C-Sec at my location now!"

**. . . . . . . . . . . .**

The next hour, the entire club has been temporarily closed down by Citadel law for investigation. C-Sec officers have the whole perimeter of the inner of the club to the street area of the club's outside secured. Standing just outside the doors of the club's entrance, Shepard is given reports about the situation with one of the turian officers holding a data pad.

"Commander, with your status above spectre level by the Council's decision, you are free from all possible charges, but you may still pay for the damage outcome that occurred." said the turian to Shepard.

"Thank you officer." he acknowledged back.

When the officer left, the entrance doors open up. Emerging out of it was Kelly, back in her casual wear, escorted out by two other turian officers. Shepard walks over to her.

"You okay?" he asked.

"I'm fine. Thanks again, for saving my life." This was the third time Shepard saved Kelly Chambers from certain death. The first being in the Collector base five year ago, and the near execution by Cerberus if Shepard didn't persuade her to change her identity four years ago to avoid contact with the pro-human organization.

"Think you can take care from here, Kelly?"

"I think so." she responded to him. "Why is it that everywhere I go, I always get caught by the bad guys?" Kelly sighed.

"Don't be sorry Kelly. There's always a chance you'll take a break from all of this." Shepard assured his friend. He knew how rough her life had been since her abduction by the Collectors five years ago, which still haunts her to this day.

"Thank you Shepard." her voice was starting to sound like she was about to cry. "I'm so glad you came for me, again. Stay safe out there." a thankful smile crosses her lips. And before either of the know it, Kelly walks away with the escorting help of the C-Sec officers.

As Shepard watches his friend walk away safely, another turian officer walks over to him. "Commander." he started, getting the commander's attention to turn around. "Councilor Hackett requests you meet him at his office in the Presidium, asap."

"Will do officer." Shepard replied. He immediately walks away from the secured crime scene place to catch a cab to take him back to the Presidium.

**. . . . . . . . . . . .**

Hackett sits at his desk in his office before his omni-desktop. He looks up when he hears the doors open up and to see Shepard stepping in. The councilor stands up to have a talk with him.

"Commander." Hackett welcomed him.

"Councilor." Shepard said after him.

"I've heard of your reports down at Goddess Haven. I'm not surprised to see you got out of there in one piece. But there is something you need to hear." Hackett told him.

"I'm listening."

"Back at the conference with the Council, you said the geth you fought on that satellite were very different than those you fought before, correct? Well, I've read your mission reports the geth had some kind of omni-shield that was almost impenetrable. And was it true one of the thugs you've just put down an hour and a half ago had the same technology?"

"I couldn't see why not." Shepard crossed his arms.

"Mhph..." Hackett sighs. "I should've known. Those damn '_A__dorians_' must be part of that obscure faction."

Shepard was confused with what the councilor just said. "What the hell is an adorian?" he thoughtfully rubbed the back of his head.

"They're a hostile race from somewhere in the Traverse. I fought a few myself back on Earth, never have they once showed mercy." explained Hackett. "Before you expect to tell you more, I hate to say that I don't. Nobody in the galaxy has heard from them since the last two decades."

And this is true. The Adorians, not to be confused with the Andorians, have not been seen in Citadel Space or in Systems Alliance Space since as late as 2169. It is unknown why they would appear again after so long, but Hackett does know they must have a possible connection with the new geth faction.

Adorians are a humanoid race from the world '_Adoria_' in the Attican Traverse, just behind the borders of Earth Systems Alliance Space. The Adorian culture was about communicating through emotions, but three millennia ago, they have forgotten about this and moved into the favor of destroying just about anything that gets in their way. The reason for this, they were once a political party with a near-human race known as the '_Nakkadans_' whom both sides declared a civil war against. The Nakkadans are native to the moon of Adoria, '_Nakkada_'. Both sides have been in a civil war for the past three millennia in their system, and only their home system before reaching other parts in the galaxy, including the Earth since 2168. Their aggression in the ongoing civil war is what made the Reapers find difficult while attempting to harvest their worlds in 2186, just like the primitive but galactic spread Vorcha of the planet Heshtok.

The Adorian physical appearances vary because of the work of genetic engineering. The regular adorians are about the same size as humans or slightly taller. Their faces have tendrils that hide their mouths as well as having a pair of fish like gills on their cheeks. The genetic modified ones are much bigger, with their gills have been merged inside their bodies to prevent exposure to dry air and harm. These giants are a lot more muscular, have heads with a tapier-like shout and four blue menacing eyes, have a pair of eye stalks that penetrate through their shoulders on some individuals, and three digits on their hands instead of the usual four. Some are about 30% larger than their unmodified cousins, while some are much, much bigger than all other adorians.

Maybe Councilor Hackett is correct. What if those adorian thugs have any connection with the geth he recently fought on that planetoid. If so, then this is way beyond coincidence.

"Anything assignments I should peruse? Shepard asked.

"I do have one assignment I've sorted out for you, but there's a catch you must hear." started Hackett. "I may not know much of the adorians myself, but I think I know someone who might. He's a childhood friend of mine."

"Where do I find him?"

"His name is '_Kendrick Price_'. He's an alien philosopher of Citadel Space, and he last reported to be studying disclosed alien intel by what was left by Cerberus at the '_Minuteman Station_'."

No way! Of all places Shepard has been assigned to head for, Minuteman Station was one of those that is truly unexpected. That station is the birth place of the Normandy SR-2. Though Shepard kept his expressions from changing the look on his face, it was still clear to Hackett, the commander is dumbstruck by what he just told him.

"He and I fought the adorians on that very same day, and I believe he has learned more about them than us. Find him, make him share whatever intel he has about them, and report back to me as soon as possible."

The commander gives a nod of acceptance. "I'll be back."

"Stay safe out there Shepard." Hackett said upon watching him turn and leaves his office. The councilor walks back to his desk.

**. . . . . . . . . . . .**

The next day, over at the commander's apartment, his new home since the return of the Citadel in it's rightful system, Shepard along with his family and Galaxina, prepare themselves for another ride on the Normandy. The apartment they live in is almost similar to that of Anderson's Personal home, whom he gave to Shepard to watch over and rest about four years ago during the Reaper invasion.

It is a two floor home located along the '_Shalta/Aroch Ward_', in one of the tall outdoor buildings on the upper region of the ward just eleven and a half miles away from the Presidium ring. From facing the inside through the front entrance, the left side living room walls have full scaled windows that can be covered by remote controlled blinds. The center of the living room was rectangular and was lower leveled to where there are three steps to walk down. has a rounded table with white sofa furniture. The living room also has a TV as well as a fireplace like Anderson's. The right side was the kitchen, the dining room, and personal gym with a punching bag and a pull-up bar. The stairs to the first floor were at the very end of the main hallway, starting from facing the left direction, then going up over the kitchen area. Beneath the stairs was a door smaller corridor with a small guest bathroom and a laundry room. The first floor, above the kitchen and dining room, has two bedrooms, one master and one children's room. The master bedroom has it's own bathroom, and the children's room was loaded with scattered plushies and play sized replicas of ships as well as it's own fish tank. Some of the wall through out the apartment had pieces of frame art and some decorative plants.

Already, Shepard is heading to the door, but pauses when he hears Galaxina speak. "Why are we going back to the ship, Shepard?"

He looks down to her. "I'm taking you guys to protect you all." Technically what he said is true, but there is something much more than what he said.

"There's bad guys!? Are we all gonna to fight them together?" Karel said enthusiastically in one of Tali's arms.

Shepard tries to keep his children positive with a warm smile, saying, "We will."

"Hurrah!" Karel joyfully brings his arms up in the air.

"Let's go." said Shepard, exiting out the door, out to the patio and straight to the doors at the other end, followed by his family and the seedrian.

**. . . . . . . . . . . .**

The airlock of the Normandy opens for Shepard after decontamination. He makes a sharp turn to the galaxy map room entrance, followed by the others from his apartment.

Soon enough, he stands just before the galaxy map itself. He looks up at the ceiling. "Joker, take us out and set a course to the '_Horsehead Nebula_'."

"Aye aye Commander. Releasing her now." Joker's voice comes through the comm.

The Normandy is released from the six magnetic couplers. It enters the vacuum of space, and hovers over the metropolis of the Zakera Ward, and away from the Citadel. From one of the buildings below, the strange human that has been stalking Shepard and Galaxina on the Presidium watches the Normandy depart from the station. It was 'he' who was responsible for the attack on Goddess Haven. He turns around from the window, and opens his omni-tool.

A face appears on the screen of the scout's omni-tool. It is '_the human lord_', the one who unleashed the 'new' geth on the unknown planetoid in the Traverse. The two give a silent stare for a couple seconds before the scout gives a menacing grin to his lips, showing his broken down teeth. The scout is up for something else, but waits for his new orders from his boss.


	5. Return to Minuteman

**Episode 5:  
****Return to Minuteman**

_"Thirty six years ago.."_

_Above the city of New York City, the sun was setting behind the tall buildings. Strolling through one of the alleyways of Long Island is a raven haired man at 32 with green eyes and a short beard which he hasn't shaved for almost nine weeks. He was dressed in an all black hoodie which he has over his head now, and all black trousers and rain boots. He had a long scar on his left temple going down to his cheek. It was made by a bread knife from an armed occupant while the man attempted to smuggle supplies from an apartment a year and a half ago._

_For all his life, since his parents been murdered almost three years ago, the man's been avoiding the public streets, avoiding the police, avoiding unwanted attention. He has become a homeless resident, stealing for personal needs. His shelter, his hidden home is the long abandoned apartment building that he is just next to at his right._

_A sudden pained scream rips from behind one of the closed windows of the building just above him, "AAAAHOOH!", hitting the man's heart with absolute fear. Panic stricken, he runs over to the nearest trash bin below an old unprotected glass window, climbs it and smashes the window with his bare fists, not even caring or flinching at the pain of the glass hurting his hands. __He crawls into the building._

_After getting up off the ground, he pulls out his pistol from his pocket. Making sure he was clear of any danger, he runs up the rotting stairs to the next level._

_The man kicks open his hidden apartment door and runs to his bedroom door, the source of the scream. On the double bed was a redheaded women with sky blue eyes, a high ponytail, and creamy skin at 29. She laid there on the double bed with a pillow and a small blanket above her legs and waist. Her belly was bloated because she is carrying a baby. Their baby, and she's going into labor._

_"Alan!" she whimpered miserably. Her eyes had that miserable look on her face._

_"Hannah!" replied Alan as he makes his way to his wife's legs, in an attempt to help her deliver their child._

_"Shit! Oh god, oh god!" Hannah's eyes water up, feeling another contraction._

_Alan tries his best to make her relaxed. "Breath like I told you." he said calmly._

_Hannah takes in deep breaths and exhaled, just as Alan had taught her when the time has arrived. Alan takes another look between her legs under the covers. He sees it._

_"Alright," Alan started again. "we got this, Honey. We got this." he continued. She fiercely nods back._

_She was scared, but felt better after hearing her husband's words. __Hannah's eyes water up in her squeezed shut eyes and she bit down on her lip to hold back another pained scream after feeling another contraction in her abdomen. She grips onto the mattress as hard as she could, making only quiet ended whimpers and groans._

_"Keep pushing, Honey. You're doing fine." he reassured to her. He tried to keep his voice sound relaxed, because he to was scared as mush as she was. He has no experience being in this situation before, but he keeps his confidence up, hoping everything will turn out to call it a day with their newborn child._

_Finally, after minutes of breathing and pushing, a big stab of pain comes through her abdomen and can no longer hold back her tongue. Hannah lets out a long painful blood curdling scream._

_"AAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"_

**. . . . . . . . . . . .**

_"Present day..."_

In the Serpent Nebula, the Normandy reaches one of the many mass relays that inhabit the region. An amount of mass energy fills the relay's corridor and propels the ship to it's current destination. *TSEOWM!*

The Normandy was silent for the moment once they have left the Citadel. Shepard was still standing in front of the galaxy map. He has been on a few coincidental places such as Eden Prime to recover Javik, the Collector ship that destroyed the first Normandy and 'killed' him for a time, Horizon to where Ashley Williams ended up being at during a Collector attack, then later returned there to chase down Kai Leng (Cerberus' greatest assassin whom Shepard later slain), et cetera. This time, he's assigned to travel to the Minuteman Station of the Horsehead Nebula, the birth place of the Normandy SR-2 and the place where he and the Illusive Man first met eye to eye, holographically. Time seemed to go on for hours, even though it's only been several minutes since their departure. Anxious but prepared, Shepard stands as if nothing really mattered as always since his service to protect the galaxy from the Reapers.

The elevator doors from behind open, and an English man in his early 40s walks out. He is the yeoman of the Normandy, first recruited to the Normandy seven months ago when the last former retired to another ship in the Alliance fleet. His personality is strict and arrogant at times, but at the same time professional. His handsome brown hair was combed down and his eyes were very light blue. His name is '_Christopher __Baker_'.

"Commander." Baker called to him in his English accent. Shepard took notice. "I figured you'd still be here."

"Something I should know, Baker?" Shepard asked, as the yeoman walks up the steps to the map.

"This is a warship you and I are standing in, and you've got three children in for a joy ride in the middle of a mission Hackett gave you." Baker started.

Shepard was confused. "Is there something I'm missing?" he asked.

The yeoman crosses his arms. "Do you really think it's overly necessary to bring children on board a ship like this? I know you are concern for your children's safety, and the safety of that new blue child you've just picked up yesterday, whatever her name is." he explained.

"The girl's name is Galaxina, I'll take responsibility for her and my kids." said Shepard in defense.

"Hmh. I just don't like the idea of bringing in children to some hell assignment on a ship to war." Baker clarified. "If you fail to protect your children, Commander, I'll take no part of it."

The elevator doors open during their argument. It was Tali, with out her helmet and hood on, to exit out and overhear them both. "I can watch over and protect them all from the dangers elements of any mission, Baker." she spoke.

"With all due respect Tali and Shepard, I appreciate your parenthood but I'm always having to put the concern for your children's safety first in line since yesterday." he starts descending to the elevator, before pausing and taking a breath. "One day, something like what I'm anticipating will occur if you keep doing this." he said with his head tilted turned back to them. "And as I said, I won't be responsible for any part of it." As soon as he was done, he enters the elevator to head down to the mess hall.

The couple still stares at the elevator exit after hearing Baker's words. He may be arrogant at times, but he generally tries to avoid arguments that may push over the edge.

"Bosh'tet." Tali swore.

**. . . . . . . . . . . .**

Galaxina stood in the starboard observation deck admiring the stars outside, desperately thinking.

She was interrupted by the sound of the doors behind her swooshing open. It was Liara who has entered the deck. The asari was holding something in her right hand that Galaxina immediately recognized.

"We found this in your stasis pod, Galaxina. I assume this is your's." Liara showed her the object in a pinkish cloth that came with it. It was a red oval shaped gem, it was just like the girl's on her chest. This bring's Galaxina's heart to a sad and sicken feeling.

"It's my mother's." said Galaxina, picking up the gem with the cloth from Liara's hand. "It is an amulet. Just like mine."

"I take it they have some important role for your culture?" Liara asked.

"The amulets are blessed. They prevent us from transforming into our final form. It was necessary for us to wear it at all times so that we can continue travelling through space to find a new home." she explained.

Because petali seedrians can transform into stationary sentient trees, they can not do anything else other than breed. So for that, Galaxina's mother has invented these amulets that will keep them from evolving, only doing so when ever necessary to keep the population of their kind going.

"My mother took this off from her to transformed into her final form to plant me and my sister. I was the first and only seed to survive from my litter, and my sister was the last of hers." Galaxina held the gem in the cloth close to her chest looking at it.

"I'm sorry if it brings back memories. You miss your family don't you?" said Liara.

"We never knew what was coming... until it was too late."

Another voice comes from the entrance. "Machine intelligence is beyond the comprehension than that of organics, Seedrian. The death of your kind was the fault of those who built them." Javik had walked into the deck as well.

Though knowing the prothean for a little while now and knowing they both have in common, Galaxina was yet to be very fond of him.

"I know it wasn't my fault for not saving them, but I wish I could at least do somethin." Galaxina responded to Javik.

"But you still hold optimism that your sister has survived. If she has, you are not alone of your kind in the galaxy."

The seedrian nodded. "I suppose your right." she looks up at her closest asari friend. "I'll be at Shepard's room." she tells her before she turns and walks out of the deck, holding her mother's amulet in her hands. Retrieving the amulet has given her so much emotional memories of the good times she spent her life with her family and own kind. The doors close shut behind her.

"The seedrian is still nervous about my presence." Javik said, sensing her fright.

"It will take some time." responded Liara.

**. . . . . . . . . . . .**

Up at Shepard's quarters, Galaxina sits on the chair of the L shaped desk to the right from the door. She leans against the desk with her arms crossed on top, still staring at her mother's amulet before her. Her kind had saved her mother's amulet in favor as a memento of their leader's past humanoid incarnation which helped their kind escape certain extinction from their devastated world.

She was alone on the cabin, and it was probably what she needs. At least for right now. Galaxina really misses her mother and Cosmo. The amulet is a personal memento of those days she spent her whole life on her colony ship. They knew they weren't safe from the metarex if they stayed in space for too long, but the inevitable destruction came about too soon for them.

Has it really been one hundred and seventy-one years since the attack? It all seems like a long, long time for her to believe. It's weird. And if the metarex haven't been seen in the galaxy since, what happened to them? Where did they go? Galaxina didn't know. What's important now is she is alive with strangers that which she calls new friends.

Spending her own time on the cabin, she takes a minute to look around her surroundings. The glass walls behind the desk had several ship models that included the Normandy and a seemingly smaller version of the Normandy below it. It's actually the replica of the first Normandy before this: the SSV Normandy, or the SR1. The right side had a creepy looking one that looked like a giant bug. It was black in color with five limbs coming from the bottom of it's cone-like shaped body. It was the replica of Sovereign, the capital Reaper ship which Shepard destroyed eight years ago to delay the incoming full galactic scaled invasion by the Reapers. One model on the other glass wall was that of the Citadel, slowly rotating round and round. The rest were ship models designed after the many factions through out the galaxy, from the Quarian Migrant Fleet, the Citadel Fleet, to the the Alliance Navy Fleet, etc.

Below it on the desk were two stands with two medals each. Interested, Galaxina rolls her chair over to get closer. One was one for saving the Citadel from Sovereign and Sarren's geth, while the other was sometime during the long hard aftermath of the fall of the Reapers four years ago. Though she doesn't know what they are, she does know they present how famous of a hero Shepard's become over the past eight years.

It was quiet in the cabin, with only the sound of the mass effect accelerators pushing the ship to it's destination. Distracted by the two medals, the seedrian doesn't hear the doors to the cabin open up as someone walks in.

"I knew you were in here." the voice of Shepard startles the seedrian, making her jump and prompting her to turn around.

"I'm sorry." she quickly apologized.

"There's nothing to be sorry for." Shepard reassured her. He notices the amulet in the pink cloth beside her on his desk. "I assume that's yours?"

Galaxina realizes he is looking at her mother's amulet. "It's my mother's. I kept it with me since I was born."

"So you have something to remind you of your family?"

"Yes." she said in a somewhat sad voice. "I miss them so much, especially Mother and Cosmo."

"A lot of us on the ship has lost loved and honored ones. I can relate to how I feel with you."

"I just feel lonely, and... weird." She pauses and lowers her head. "Has it really been so long?"

Shepard steps toward her and rubs the back of her shoulder. "It's never that easy recovering from a long sleep, Galaxina. Even I went through that."

"Really." she look up into his eyes.

"You don't want to know what happened." he tells her. Personal information is a weakness for him. "But you're never alone as long as you have us." he reassured.

Galaxina gives a small smile to her lips, feeling better at the commander's words.

Just as the conversation can continue, Joker's voice comes through the comm. "Minuteman Station in ten minutes, ETA."

They were almost there to the birth grounds of this ship. Shepard had to gear up for the mission.

"Why don't you spend time with Tali and the kids on the other side. I'll take care of your mother's gem." he tells Galaxina.

She knew she can rely on Shepard the most on things. So she accepts the commander's request as she got off from the chair.

"You will." her eyes sparkled with moisture. Shepard nods in response. "Thanks for everything." Galaxina thanked him.

He bends to her level where they both give each other a quick heartwarming hug. After they break apart, she smiles up at him. "I'll see you later."

Shepard returns the smile, and watches Galaxina walk out of the cabin. Now is the time to suit up in his choice of armor and arm up.

**. . . . . . . . . . . .**

Orbiting an alien planet in the Horsehead Nebula cluster was the '_Minuteman Station_'. This station was where the black ops network Cerberus held many of the Lazarus Project's material when reviving Shepard from a clinically brain damaged state at death. Now sometime after the shut down of Cerberus during the final days of the Reaper invasion, the station was captured by the Systems Alliance for intel and resources.

Many space stations through out the galaxy have been demolished by Reaper forces, but the Minuteman outpost was spared in time. Since under Alliance control, the station has become a galore of uncovered classified information, making it a restricted area for unauthorized outsiders to visit by Alliance Command rules.

The station was an elongated thin base with half of a ring below lit by blue large rectangled lights, four solar pannels on one side of it's top, a triangular top to support more levels and a tower, and antenna all around certain spots of the station from top to bottom.

The Normandy has already approached it's proximity. Joker must acquire allowance from the station's control bay to dock her on board. Shouldn't be to hard.

Shepard stands in the bridge in his N7 armor behind Joker in order to make contact with the station's security control bay before docking.

"Normandy to Minuteman control, requesting permission to dock, over." Joker announced. Waiting for a response, they get nothing but definite silence. "Normandy to Minuteman control, do you copy?" he said again though the comm, but all they get was nothing. There was something not right here. Something's not right here at all.

"Huh, you would think they'ed be in awe that we're bringing their child back home, would they?" Joker said sarcastically.

Without getting any response through the Normandy's comms, the ship will still be greeted by an unsuspecting and unpleasant surprise. The station is also armed with an array of automated defense systems such as turrets. They're purpose was to prevent any Alliance ships or batarian raids to interfere with Cerberus' projects. These turrets are already functioning up.

From the Normandy, the pilot can see the station's defense protocol readings going off. The turrets have set their target course directly at the Normandy.

"Uh, this doesn't look good." Joker said the obvious.

*DUD! DUD! DUD! DUD! DUD! DUD! DUD!* shots begin to fire at the targeted ship out of the turrets. Joker was able to react quickly. before the shots hit the ship of his life.

"Holy shit!" Joker yelled just as he maneuvers the Normandy out of firing range of the incoming shots at close call.

*DUD! DUD! DUD! DUD! DUD!* all the turrets from the station are online, shooting at the Normandy for no described reason.

"What the shit are-!?" Joker was cut off when he suddenly needed to manuver the ship at dodging speeds away from more firing slugs. "Evasive maneuvers! Kenetic barriers at 65%!" he exclaimed as several more hit them. "Goddamit, this is gonna hurt! Hang on!"

Joker dodges through the bombardment of machine gun shots firing at them. There's no way they are going to get through with all of those defense systems going on about.

**. . . . . . . . . . .**

Up at the children's room of the Captain's Quarter's floor, the children and Galaxina are in total shock of what's going on outside. Shepard's kids were huddled against Galaxina who was sitting against the edge of the bed on the floor.

"We're under attack!" exclaimed Karel. "Daddy needs help!"

"No, don't!" said the seedrian, tightening her grip on the young hybrid from running out of the room. It's a dangerous place out there for a child.

**. . . . . . . . . . .**

"Uhgh! No ideas here, Commander! I can't take her any closer without loosing another Normandy!" yelled Joker from his chair.

With out hesitation, an idea sparks into Shepard. He activates his comm unit.

"Cortez, get a shuttle up and running! We're going in!"

The shuttle pilot's voice speaks through. "Aye, sir!" he sounded a little panicked.

Shepard immediately departs from the bridge saying, "Keep her safe Joker." and leaves him behind to take care of the rest.

Joker was not at all pleased with the situation he himself has been put in, as always. He sighs in frustration. "Shit..."

**. . . . . . . . . . .**

Down in the shuttle bay, Shepard, Tali and Vega rush to the the Kodiak. The plan is to get to the Minuteman Station as a smaller but more maneuverable target, for the chances of boarding it without dying to a decreased level.

Garrus stood just out side the shuttle. As soon as Shepard and his chosen team jumps in, he turns outside to see his turian comrade with his carifex in hand. Shepard is counting on him to watch after his kids and Galaxina.

"Never have I let you down Shepard." Garrus told him before running over to the elevator.

The cargo hatch opens and the Kodiak, piloted by Cortez, takes a lift before flying out.

It wasn't long before some of the turrets began changing their targets to Cortez's Kodiak.  
*DUD! DUD! DUD! DUD! DUD! DUD!*

Steve was able to get out of the oncoming fire, but the fun was just getting started. Several ships were also coming from the docking bays of the station. The majority of them were geth.

"Damn it! We've got geth ships inbound!" yelled Cortez.

As if things couldn't get any more stranger, the few other ships were something new was well. Those ones were two tenths the size of the geth ships, and were shaped like classic style rocket ships, like something from a late twentieth century cartoon show. The silver tin can-like rocket had three red painted empennages at the end surrounding a primitive fuel burning jet. The fronts were crested, ending with a painted tip at the base end. They had six thinly front windshields and a matching red colored bolt decals going across each side of the ships.

The non-geth ships, rather than firing right on sight, decide to fly to the side of the Kodiak as it swiftly avoids the firing of the turrets and the geth ships. On the sides, a trio set of pothole shaped hatches open up, and three oval canons pop out of them. These primitive built ships attack by positioning themselves side by side to their enemies.

*TOWM!* a ball of fire is shot out from one of the ships. Luckily the Kodiak was fast enough to avoid it on time. *TOWM TOWM* the primitive ships launch a bombardment of cannonball sized bombs from the canons. Non of them hit the shuttle, but few were close calls.

"Commander, I'm gonna try to lure them away from you!" Joker's voice comes through the Kodiak's comms.

From a far, the Normandy, taking a few hits from the rain of fire, manages to shoot down one of the primitive ships with a javelin torpedo strike. *PTSWUM!*-*KBOBANGM!*

The other ships have taken notice, and decide to follow the Normandy as it passes by. That will gave the Kodiak a better chance of getting to the station alive.

The rapid ride felt like hours, though it lasted only a couple minutes before finally reaching to an open docking bay left by the geth ships.

*TBANG* a shot from a turret hits the shuttle, forcing it to loose control. Nearly making it to the docking bay, it hits the side walls with a massive impact, making it to force a sharp spin before landing hard against the ground, smashing away junk and right against another shuttle. *KOBOOM!*

From inside, everyone was stuck dazed from the wild crash landing scene. They all groan as they regain themselves back up.

"Son of a bitch!" cursed Cortez, trying to sit back up onto his seat.

Shepard was the first to get up, then helps both Tali and Vega up as well. "How bad is the shuttle damaged?" he asked the pilot.

"Not good, I'm gonna need sometime to repair this bird. But I can't do it with those things outside." Cortez explained. "If you can find an overide somewhere, I can repair this thing without getting myself killed."

"I'll see what we can find." Shepard acknowledged. "Move out!" he ordered his team.

**. . . . . . . . . . .**

With the shuttle hatch sliding open, Shepard and his team jump out with their choice of weapons drawn in hand.

The docking bay was rather... dark. There was very little lighting on. Shepard's squad even had to switch on their flashlights of their guns to see where they were going. They eventually find a still active door just seven yards away from the Kodiak and enter through it. It lead to a stairwell leading to the top floor of the bay.

The top floor was the control room. The inside was not an all in all welcoming sight. Several data pads and toppled chairs were spread everywhere as if they had to evacuate the place in a rush. But more importantly, there was one panel just before the cracked window still activated with the orange hue light the only lighting source in the entire room.

This was Shepard's opportunity to override the bay's doors to seal shut. He is no engineer like his wife next to him, but he knew how some things like this worked. Easy enough to say, after bypassing the security circuit pins, presumed to have been messed with by the geth, the override was fully bypassed.

**{Initiating shut down protocol of Hangar Bay 03 doors. Shut down sequence in progress.}** the feminine voice of the station's VI announces through out the station.

The red lights of the bay's warning lights go off and a booming protocol alerting sounds off as the hatch slowly but surely closes shut and tight. After the alerting sounds buzz three times, the hatch seals shut blocking the scene of the battle outside behind it.

**{Complete. Shut Down sequence to Hangar Bay 03 successful.}**

"_That should do it Commander._" said Cortez through the comm. "_As long as the geth don't hack it up, I'll be safe._"

"Good luck Cortez." replied Shepard.

The three now head back down the stairs and to another active doorway that was between the doors to the stairs and to an inactive lock one, presumably to another stair well too the control bay.

**. . . . . . . . . . .**

When Shepard and his squad enter the next entrance to a hallway, they ran into nothing but total pitch blackness. And they couldn't even see more than several feet with their flashlights because the hall was covered by a thick wall of mist. It's no surprise the new geth faction has taken over control of the station, as of any indication of the ships swarming outside and the defense protocol systems targeting the Normandy as a threat. But the big question above all is this: Where is everyone?

Some personnel may be either hiding or worse, all have been executed by the geth. Never the less, Shepard must push on to find '_Kendrick Price_', Hackett's childhood friend to see if he knows the reasons of the new geth and the possible adorian alliance, and why they're attacking in Citadel Space. Just gotta hope the geth haven't reached him yet.

*Cough!* "It's a little too quiet in here, ain't it Loco?" James coughed through the thick mist leak.

"It is. Everybody be ready." Shepard responded.

Walking down the long pitch black hallway, they eventually stumble across a locked door that Shepard can bypass.

The Commander places his arm on the omni-lock with his omni-tool. In no time, the lock's color changes from orange to green. Immediately after, the doors woosh open. All three of them head inside where there was little light, lit by a weak blue hue from some emergency lights on the sides of the floor and ceiling. The section they've entered is a t-intersection that was clear of any fog. Elsewhere in the halls at the end were the sounds of geth buzzing their usual stuttering static noises. For cover, there were crate stacks on each side they can duck under. Synthetic footsteps were being heard. The close by geth are getting closer.

Shepard skids down the stack to the left while Tali and Vega took the right side ones. Peaking from behind, Shepard can see the enemy patrolling the corridors. It was a very large red schemed geth with three small violate colored head lights on it's head, matching lighting details on it's model, and it carried a pulse cannon.

This is a '_geth prime_', similar to those they fought before on and above Rannoch, the Quarian homeworld, four years ago. Judging by the violate lighting colors, it is highly probable it is part of the new geth faction. These geth prime types usually just have red lights.

Just as it stepped in the middle of the corridor, it turn's its head down the base of the T. Shepard and his squad quickly hid under their cover. The giant geth infantry unit scans the dark hallway. It stood there for a good ten seconds before heading straight to the other end of the passage, followed by two other enemies.

One was a copper red tear shaped synthetic unit, less than one half of Shepard's size just about a foot off the ground. It didn't look geth-like. It also looked like it was organic in some ways. It had a pair of scaly looking arms on the sides with four fingers each, and three orange colored lights; one on the top and two more right below it in a column structure. Behind it was another prime unit, following the other two units.

Unfortunately, while peaking from behind the stacks from the sides, one of Tali's legs slips off balance and slides off to the exposed area of the hallway. She and Vega quickly get it back behind cover, but the noise has alerted the geth prime. It looks straight down the dark corridor.

{*Glglglgglrr-Glrasghghlighirgh!*} the prime grumbles a stuttering noise as it begins to investigate the for source of the noise it heard. Everyone holds on to their breaths as their hearts begin pumping uncontrollably.

Geth primes have incredibly high shielding and armor, and even if they could take it down hence by their numbers to team up with and multiple fire power, the noise would attract more unwanted attention of other possible nearby enemies. Not to mention these new geth are a lot more sophisticated than ever before, which they already knew by now.

The geth prime slowly creeps down the darkened hallway during its investigation. Through it's optical vision, it scans the stack Tali and Vega are taking cover. It thinks that's where the noise it heard came from. The three of them stay absolutely still as the prime slowly places it's left three digit hand on the side of the stack. But right before it turns to where Shepard's team is hiding...

*_Woaruurraauuurrroooraagh!_*

A roar like nothing they've heard before, echoes through out the facility. It catches the primes attention, withdraws from its investigation and turns its head over its shoulder.

{*Tzuzg-gh-zghg!*}

It proceeds straight to where it's allies went, and while it does so, Shepard and his team peak out for one last time. This was a close call. But still, how are these geth different besides their physical appearances and intelligence levels from all the other geth they knew before the fall of the Reapers? The sooner they find Kendrick and get the _hell_ out of this place, the better.

**. . . . . . . . . . .**

Following down the path the three synthetic units went, Shepard and his team find themselves another door that's been unlocked by the geth, and the the three enter through. It lead to a large room with few lab equipment, much like a freshman's science lab. This was definitely an experimental bay where Cerberus formerly tested on some of their black ops experiments on alien tech and biology, to seek a way for possible human cultural jumps to a higher level.

The lab was not very inviting either... it's a mess. Shattered glass, utensils and data pads scattered all over the floor, toppled chairs, and blood (human blood) and flesh spurted everywhere.

"Dios mío..." started James "What the hell happened in here?"

"I don't know." said Shepard.

The geth might have indeed destroyed the place, but that alone doesn't explain the bloodied mess left behind here. Something had to not only trash the place down, but to also tear a human being into shreds. Could the killer be the one that sound off the might roar from just earlier? There is defiantly something else lurking in the darkness of this facility, yet it isn't in this room anymore.

While still searching for answers to what's going on, Tali's foot steps on a fresh blood puddle making a noticeable splatting noise. She shines her M-5 Phalanx heavy pistol's flashlight below and nearly gasps when she saw the redness on her foot and steps away, but what made it even more disturbing was the shape of the puddle. It wasn't just a puddle... it's a flattened and wide three toed '_foot print_', bigger than Tali's.

"Shepard." she grabs her husband's attention. Vega takes notice as well.

The three of them stare at the print below, and when their heads followed the direction it was going, they see another one, and another, then another. It's a trail leading to one of the doors of the right side wall, like a dinosaur leaving it's foot trails in the mud.

"I've never seen tracks like this before." Tali said.

"You think it's something we've never seen yet?" wondered Vega.

"Maybe." responded Shepard.

Shepard, who has been using his M-3 Predator's flashlight the whole time, switches to his '_M-23 Katana shotgun_'. If the trail is left by something new, it would probably be best to keep a heavy fire powered gun in hand in case.

**. . . . . . . . . . .**

Unfortunately for them, the bloodied foot trail was slowly disappearing in the next hall, and the leading doors were locked. It could be possible to hack the doors to by pass it. But after a couple attempts to by pass the security, it turns out to be proven pointless. It's circuits have been fried to a crisp. The geth have destroyed it. This is just another fine example of how coordinated these new geth units really are.

"Any other ideas?" asked Tali.

The commander scans the area and spots a sealed emergency hatch. That could be their only way around the inaccessible passage. "Up there." he said, walking up to the ladder.

He climbs it up and undoes the locking mechanism, but the hatch didn't open. Instead, Shepard grabs the handle to open it manually. Just when he was about to do so, James, who was twitching his legs while waiting, accidentally hits his foot against a piece of metal on the floor making a rather loud clanging noise.

*Clingiging!*

Everyone else turns in surprise.

"Uh... no comment." Vega idiotically avoided a coming comment from the rest.

Shepard proceeds to pry the hatch door off. It was noticeably hard. When all of a sudden, the hatch's entrance suddenly slides easily, thinking he may have done it. But he didn't do it, something else had slid it off for him.

*_GWORAAUGHEARGHH!_* an aggressive screech comes from the top floor immediately after the hatch opens up. *_GWIRRRAGH!_*A scaly arm with long untrimmed yellowish nails grabs Shepard's shoulder and pulls him up and right off the ladder. *_GRRWOUWRARRAUAGH!_* The creature roars aloud as it brings the commander up to eye level height.

"Shepard!" Tali shouted at the sight of her husband being pulled out from the unseen enemy.

Vega attempts to grab Shepard by the legs to try to haul him back down, but he wasn't quick enough. He misses Shepard's legs just as he is hauled up. With both hands, the creature swings and tosses the commander against one of the room's pillars with a tremendous amount of force.

*GBASH!*  
"Agh!" Shepard grunts painfully by the impact on his back and slumps onto his stomach with his eyes squeezed shut and his teeth bearing out. As he lifts and turns his head through his blurred vision, he sees a bulky hunched over figure picking up a machete blade off the floor while stomping quickly towards the dazed human.

It latches its loose clawed hand around the neck of the commander, and lifts him up again to it's height. *_VRISHRHAAUGHGH!_* it roars again at Shepard's face, awarding him with a wave of hot, wet, and nauseating breath. He couldn't describe the horrendous stench, but the mix did smell like as if it had blood in it to, which it did have all over its jaws.

With the help of the room's illuminating yellow lights that were still active on the center ceiling, he sees his mugger enemy. It's a hideous green, long-tailed reptilian biped just no bigger than him do to it being hunched over (standing about five feet tall), but it was still massive. Its outfit was medieval primitive-like; the armor consisted of spaulders, a loincloth, vambraces, cuisses as well as open toed sbatobs for it's reptilian clawed feet. It isn't the same creature, but it is the species what made those tracks on the lower level as well as the roar from just earlier. Its complete ugly face had a mouth with a row of large jagged cunning teeth on the outer jawlines, and another set in the inner jawlines that were pointier, smaller, and straight. Its open mouth made it more ominous with dripping saliva and even human blood that was stained all over its teeth and lips. There was even more human blood stained all over it's arms and nails, All of it implying this creature is a brutal and gruesome killer.

The creature growls as it held the still dazed commander halfway off the ground, who was trying to catch a breath of some fresh air into his desperate lungs. It has heard the clanking metal that James accidentally tripped on, alerting it of their presence. From behind it, rounds from Vega's M-7 Lancer riffle hit the thick skinned back of the reptile which forces it to drop Shepard, startled by the sudden pain. It didn't do a lot of damage, but it still hurt the creature.

Shepard regains his consciousness and pulls out his katana while he tries to crawls to a supply crate to take cover.

*_HKHROURAGHRRAUGHM!_* the reptile brute roars in anger at its next two rivals climbing out of the hatch. It rushes behind it, reaching to a small metal crate. It picks it up with both arms, and flings at at the squadmates. It smashes Vega with great force, forcing him to fall off his feet. The creature then charges at him and attempts to stomp the human down with a hundred plus pounds on him, but he was able to dodge the oncoming enemy just at the last minute.

With his Katana, Shepard sends off rounds on it's back where it was definitely more vulnerable to attack with enough fire power. The creature grunts in agony and swiftly turns to its attention on the commander. With another short screech, it charges head on at him. The creature misses the dodging commander who has done a a quick log roll and smashes into one of the room's pillars, demolishing it into a million pieces. *GSMASHH!* The ends of where the tech pillar once was was now lit with sparks shooting everywhere.

*MGHRRREIAGK!* the creature growled in frustration, realizing it had not smashed the human.

Shepard and his squad fire at the creature's backside. The reptilian brute was taking much damage... it's gotten pretty pissed off now.

Without warning, it flings it's machete at the squad at high speeds, missing them all but also nearly slicing Vega's neck right off. He felt the sudden gush of wind on his bare skin, causing him to get the chills. They all watch the weapon as it sweeps by, catching them completely off guard, and hits the other side wall of the room, clanging loudly on it before falling to the ground.

Everything and everyone becomes still for a brief moment. Shepard's team and the creature stood their ground. Its yellow eyes looked menacingly at the three and its arms were spread in a combat stance. After five seconds of staring, the creature spots something on the other side of the room, at one end of one of the U shaped control panels in the center of the room. A fuel canister. It rushes over to it, climbing over the first control panel, then reaches the opposite panel to lift up the canister.

Shepard and the others just watched, aiming their guns right at the creature. Then, as if they have not yet figured it out already, the brute creature hurtles the canister at their direction, making a squealing growl as it did.

*BIGOUM!* the canister creates a tremendous explosion on the wall behind the squadmates, forcing them to scatter and fly off their heals by the shockwave.

The creatures dashes over to Tali before she could get up. It grabs and lifts her by the thigh, and another hand on her torso. Its sharp bloodstained claws weren't puncturing through her enviro-suit, but she still felt the pain of them poking through the leather of her suite. The creature lifts her up over its shoulder then smashes her back against the cold floor below with a *Thud!*. *_SHNAAAUGHHEEIIGRRH!_* It grabs the quarian again, this time around the throat and a heavy arm around her back, pressing her against it. It opens its jaws full of razor sharp teeth to crush Tali's head. Her free arms grab the creature's snout to try to pry it away from her. Its wet breath blinds her visor as she does so.

A sudden blast hits the creature on the side, tearing half of its armored plating in pieces and forcing it to let go of the quarian. Vega has used his 'carnage' projectile to stun the reptile brute which worked.

Still recovering, the creature bum rushes at full speed at Vega with its bloodied clawed arms extended to try to trample him down but he was able to get out of the way. Out in the center open, it makes a sharp turn to look at the squad before retreating into the darkened corners.

"Where the hell is that thing?" shouted Vega, scanning the dark perimeter, looking for the creature.

Tali activates her omni-tool crying aloud, "Go find him Chatika!" A purple lighted combat drone is then summoned before its master, nicknamed '_Chatika vas Paus_'.

Chatika hovers above the battle ground in search of the hidden enemy. It flies over to one of the darkened corners where the creature went. It's become too quiet now. But just after seconds of searching, it spots the creature's figure through it's optics.

*Spwat!* Chatika's optics suddenly become blinded by a sticky tongue tip that has shot out from the darkness. Shepard and his squad shine their guns' flashlights over to see the creature has latched it's long chameleon-like tongue at the drone.

A shock from the drone zaps the creature's tongue, stunning it as it quivered and whimpered in pain like a dog. It races across the room over by the doorway and to another fuel canister. It quickly lifts it up and flings it at the squad, *BIGOUM!*, and shattering Chatika at the same time.

The three were still on their feet, but the canister 's explosion had successfully blown open an ammo crate. Rolling out of it were magazines of incendiary ammo. Shepard snatches a magazine and loads it into his Katana. With the incendiary ammo equipped, he aims for the pissed off creature that's been staring at them for a second time.

*_SNARREIIAAH!_* It makes a loud hissing noise at the three before rushing over to the other side of the hall with another fuel canister. As soon as it pick it up, Shepard fires the Katana's incendiary shots at it and the creature, making it explode in it's arms. *BIGOUM!* - *_GRAAUURGH!_*

He fires a second time, then a third time at the creature that was now in a bath of flames. The burning brute flails and tumbles onto the wall and sliding it's claws along it, leaving deep long gashes. *_GRRWAAUUEEEIIRRAHGH!_* - *Thud!* the creature makes a long whimpering growl before collapsing to the ground.

Surprisingly, the incendiary rounds had yet to incinerate the creature all the way and it was still alive, barely alive. The three approach over to the dying creature with caution.

"Why isn't he out yet?" asked Tali.

"Bastard's tougher than a Krogan." said Vega, who was shocked to encounter something much more powerful and aggressive than a really angry Blood Pack Krogan, more or less.

Shepard pulls out his M-3 Predator and points it directly at the burning creature's face. While it was still in small flames, the dying reptile partially lifts its head off the ground and stares menacingly at both the commander and his pistol with one of its now bloodshot eyes. After seconds of heavy and slow breathing, it makes one more long weak growl until its head limps lifelessly with it's eyes still open and its narrowed pupils going wide.

Shepard lowers the pistol, giving two more seconds of staring at the creature's burnt up corpse. He walks over to the locked door and presses his omni against the omni-lock. The lock's lighting turns green and gives them access further into the facility.

"Let's go. We still have to find Kendrick before the Geth do." ordered Shepard, awaiting for the arrival of his teammates before entering their next location. He still believes Kendrick Price is still on this station alive. They've just got to keep on looking.

**. . . . . . . . . . .**

Back with the Normandy outside, the ships continuously dodges the incoming fire of the turrets still in firing range and holding off the fleet of geth and unknown starships. Javelin torpedoes manage to successfully hit and destroy some of the ships, while a barrage of heavy fire power hit the ship's mass effect fields and heavy plating. How long can this hold up is unknown. The multi race fleet seems a lot more coordinated than any of the other ships encountered before, other than the Reapers. Shepard and his team back at the on must hurry up the pace.

**. . . . . . . . . . .**

The team cautiously enters another darkened hall, with only a few back up lights on along the sides. It was too quiet once again. Above the door was a lable saying: "Crew's Quarters". They enter it.

The second they get inside, they are greeted by a single short high pitched beep... from the ground. *Kabbom!* There was a planted mine of geth origin laying right at the entrance. The commander is caught in flames.

"Shepard! Are you alright?" Tali asked hastily.

"I'm fine." he said casually as the flames burn off, and his shields regenerating.

They all come to realize there are geth trip mines planted everywhere. One on the center dinning table, one right in front of the doors on all other three sides, and a couple others along some of the the walls. The geth have booby trapped the entire place.

"This place is a mine field." started Shepard. "Everyone watch your step."

The three of them step cautiously into the quarters, trying not to activate any mines. There could be more hidden ones anywhere, particularly in darkened areas. But thankfully, on the nearest counter top, there was a '_M-451 Firestorm_'. A handheld heavy weapon (a flamethrower) that can shoot a burst of flames at a short-range, manufactured by the Systems Alliance. The commander picks it up, and judging by its weight, it hasn't been used.

"This should come in handy." he said.

He aims the firestorm at one of the mines. *Tsvum!* After a short burst, *Kabbom!* the mine detonates prematurely. It's a genius way to conserve their ammo for enemy attacks.

"Eat that you sons of bitches!" Vega proudly makes a curse to the geth.

"This way." Shepard ordered to the door in front. He spots another mine before the one at the entrance. *Tsvuussm!* Shepard fires a larger bust to disable both of them, thus causing a chain reaction. But there was another one to the side of the wall that didn't blow up. *Tsvum!* - *Kabbom!* Shepard clears their way to the exit.

Just as Shepard enters another long hall with a long window to the left first, the sound of a mine charges up to their right. *Kabbom!* the explosion catches him again.

"Watch it." warned Vega.

The window to the side led to an expansive laboratory. Surely it was dark, but with the help of the weak blue emergency lights, they could see exactly what's in the other side. To the far end, there were chambers of some sort. They may be testing tanks. In the center were terminals and consoles. But pretty much everywhere, there were geth crawling all over the place. Several troopers were before almost every console either tapping away or utilizing their purple omnis. Some were even at the far testing chambers. Prime units were patrolling the entire area, and with them were those organic-synthetic drones they first saw shortly after they landed.

"Holly hell, where'd they all come from?" quietly exclaimed Vega.

"They're scanning for something." guessed Shepard observing their every move.

"The Geth probably took over the station to gather something we aren't aware of." concluded Tali.

Shepard was about to say something when he sees something coming into view on the lover floor with all the other geth. A green humanoid comes out from the large doors just below them, followed by another of those drones. It was an unmodified adorian, as of indication of the two large blue hill flaps on the sides of its face. They watch as the adorian appears to speak to one of the primes in its language. They may not be able to hear what's going on from where they are, but they know this one thing:

"The Adorians are working with the Geth." Shepard finally spoke. It turns out Hackett's theory was not sell short after all.

"You know, I think we're dealing with more than just a geth conspiracy." started James. "Think about it. Geth, Adorian, lizard people. This must be some sort of enemy alliance teamed up to make one unstoppable force. And if they've taken control over the whole station, they'll do the same to the Citadel, and nobody would stand a chance." he finished explaining.

"Kendrick must know more about them than what we think." Tali responded.

"I agree." said Shepard. "Then let's keep moving. If Kendrick's alive, we'll find him."

Just then, Joker comes through the comm. "_Commander, I don't know what you're doing down there, but if you can just speed things up a bit, that'll be great._" he said hurriedly and sarcastically.

"We're doing our best, Joker. How long can you hold up out there?"

"_Uhh... About less than an hour if you will. I'm trying to keep the ships away but the turrets are just a pain in the ass._"

"Keep it together out there Joker. We'll be out in less than an hour. Copy?"

Joker makes a heavy breath before speaking. "_Fine._" he cuts off afterwards. He remembers being on several missions on where he's been dodging hostile fire on the Normandy, such as the geth attack on the Citadel eight years ago and final push to retake Earth four years ago. But since the obliteration of EDI, he's become more and more overly defensive about the ship.

Shepard and his team continue back with their search through Minuteman. The far end door was armed with a trip mine to the side. *Tsvusim!* - *Kabbom!* Shepard immediately looks out the large window to see if any enemies took notice. None seem like it. They all seemed focused on their work down there. Then again, geth don't use windows because its a structural weakness to them.

Relieved, they enter the doorway to another section of the base.

**. . . . . . . . . . .**

At Shepard Quarters on the Normandy, the children and Galaxina were all taking refuge while the battle outside goes on, with Garrus as their bodyguard.

"Where's Daddy?" asked Rea.

"Daddy's a little busy, Kid." responded Garrus.

"He need help!" chimed in Karel.

"He's fine, Kid. He'll be back before you know it."

"Awwww!" whined the desperate hybrid. He really wants to aid Shepard on his mission, 'cause he promised his father to keep the Normandy safe.

Galaxina keeps the two children hybrids close to her, and herself to Garrus on one of the sofas.

**. . . . . . . . . . .**

Back on Minutman, it wasn't long before Shepard, Tali and James walk into another corridor, with a line of small windows to another lab room filled with dissection tables. The room was almost pitch black inside to see several yards. It was quiet once again, but they were prepared for anything else to pop out and shoot at them. Hopefully Kendrick Price isn't far from them now. If the geth end up do finding him, they're gonna have a problem.

In the darkened room, a dark figure strides through the lightened spots if the room. No one took notice. Seconds later when they make an L turn to the right. A figure pops in front of one of the small windows and bangs lightly on the glass once. Shepard and his team make a quick turn to that direction, startled.

"Hey buddy, over here!" the figure called out to them in a somewhat nerdy voice. It was an actual living person. He was a dressed in an off-duty spacer outfit, and he had a short dark brown beard growing on him.

Shepard and his team walk over to the man, who then becomes delighted to see Shepard in particular. "Ah man, so glad to see yeah Commander! Thank god you're here! Bet yeah those Geth will be getting a real scare when they see you again!"

They were relieved to have finally found someone they can talk to. Through out this mission, they've been finding nobody but their murderers and consumers. Now they've been lucky enough to find a survivor finding out for God knows how long.

"Are you Kendrick Price?" Shepard questioned the man.

"Uh-No. No I'm not." he answered. "I'm just a heavy storage worker that was supposed to be on his break. But no." He explained. "I do know Mr. Price, however. Genius bastard who knows a lot 'bout aliens. "

"Do you know where he last headed?" Shepard asked te stranger again.

"Further down bellow, in the station's deepest labs was where he was last reported to. God knows if he's still down there. I can help guide you guys down there, but first, you gotta get me out of here." the stranger explained.

"How do we do that?"

"You see that door over there?" he pointed to the red lock on the door at the far end from them. "Geth destroyed the lock and trapped me in here shortly after they arrived and searched this place. I was lucky they didn't find me. You've gotta break me out of here." The stranger has been taking refuge inside this lab room when the Geth and the other enemies took over the place. After scanning the perimeter, the left and sealed the room tight by frying up the omni-lock, trapping the helpless stranger inside for hours.

Shepard raises his Katana at the window, the stranger steps aside.

"Wait," Tali held her arm in front of her husband. "what if that glass is bullet proof?"

"It isn't." said the stranger from inside the small lab. "Trust me, shot and no clip will bounce back on your ass."

So, Shepard reloads his shotgun without the thermal clips and fires at the window. The glass shatters into a million pieces. The stranger moves in front of the destroyed window, and grabs onto Shepard's and James' arms to pull him out of there.

"Ah, feels so good." the stranger said after getting pulled out. He turns to the commander. "Now I'll guide the way to where that genius bastard Mr. Price may be." he walks off to the end of the hall, but stops in front. "Ladies first." he jokingly said to the commander.

Shepard follows after the deranged stranger to the door which swooshes open for him. Through the weak lighting, he spots two geth trip mines in a row on the floor below. *Tsvuis!* - *Kabbom!* the mines explode prematurely in a chain reaction by the flames of his firestorm.

"Over here. Follow me to this elevator." the stranger passes Shepard into the corridor with four routes. One leading to an elevator shaft to their right. Only problem is, there are trip mines alone both sides of the entrance. "Damn, could really use that firestorm of yours there, Commander." he said after finding out the way was wired with mines.

*Tsvuiisi!* - *Kabbom, Kabbom!*

Once it was clear, the stranger presses the green button to the side. They wait patiently as the elevator starts going up to their level.

"Now watch yourself, I know a vast number of the bastards are down there." the stranger warned Shepard and his squad. "I know my way around this station, so stay close to me and don't let them on me."

The elevator doors finally open up. The team of four walk in and the stranger selects their destination to the lowest level of the station.

**. . . . . . . . . . .**

When the elevator opens on the ground floor, the stranger was the first to walk out, padding to the nearest crate stack and ducking down, followed by Shepard and his team.

The stranger he's tired his finger to keep everyone quiet. He peaks from the side and sees the next four way intersection heavily guarded by three geth troopers and two unmodified adorians.

"I'm not armed, Commander. Looks like you're gonna have to do this your way from this point." he told Shepard, returning to cover.

This was indeed gonna have to be done the hard way. Shepard pulls out a frag grenade, and stands up from cover. He tosses it to one of the patrolling geth troopers. The explosion hits the geth right on its side before it could react. The sudden assault alerts all other enemies in the vicinity. Shepard, Tali and James jump out of cover.

The two remaining geth's white head lights immediately switch to bright red, and their light chips cover much of their lights, giving them an 'evil eye' kind of look.

*_Khoraough!_* an adorian growls out, but was taken down quickly by Shepard's avenger rifle.

Firing at the troopers, they activate their omni-shields, inevitably blocking the enemy fire.

With quick thinking, Vega fires a carnage shot at one of the troopers,*BOOM!*, stunning it. It was taken down when Vega shots it down with his lancer.

The second geth was sabotaged and hacked by Tali, forcing the unit to switch sides in a temporary state. Instead of shoot's its enemy targets, the hacked AI unit initiates allied fire at the last adorian.

*_Blaruach!_* the adorian makes a dying sound after being shot down by the geth's pulse rifle. The trooper unit's eye chip piece deactivates and it's red lighting turns back to its normal white color.

When the geth turns around to Shepard while still under its hacked state, *PIOWM!*, he fires his predator heavy pistol at its head, destroying it. The three of them quickly scan the perimater and the three other dark hallways, to see if anymore hostile activity is present. Everything was quiet and still. They were all clear for now.

"It's safe to go." announced Shepard to the stranger, who pop out and heads down the hallway across from the elevator.

"The labs he was last assigned to are just further beyond these doors. If he's still down here, then lucky him. He's said to have close encounters with aliens and always came out alive. Even with a couple of scars, just like you, Commander."

"Noted." responded Shepard, sarcastically.

Just when they enter the next room, which was filled with large boxes in three straight rows, at the far end from them was a prime unit. {*_BZBIZZIBZI-IGBZBZBZGI!_*} the geth prime grumbles out the moment its sees them. Three eye chip pieces cover much of the prime's three red lights, making it's appearance attempting to be more intimidating to its enemies.

"Prime! Take cover!" yelled Shepard just before it shoots a volley of plasma pulse beams at the party.

Seeing the party has taken cover behind the crates, the prime summons a combat drone to find and distract them. These prime models have incredibly heavy shielding and armor, as well as deploying drones and turrets to shoot at enemies, making these synthetic top tanks a real joke to kill, should one ever go rookie on them.

Having experience with these geth before in the Perseus Veil, Shepard loads up disruptor ammo into his avenger. Peaking from cover, he aims at the really angry prime, taking away its shields. But of course, being part of this new geth faction, the prime pulls out its omni-shield and deploys points its arm out to spawn a geth turret at the other end of the room where Shepard's party is taking cover.

The turret hovers above the ground. It shoots its pulse fire at Vega, who fires back at it with a carnage blast to break its shields *KIRRAK!* and is destroyed by Tali's arc pistol.

"Don't let it recharge!" Tali said, in not wanting the prime's kinetic barriers to recharge.

Vega tosses a frag grenade at the prime to stun the geth. *BOOM!* it works, and the prime's omni-shield goes off for a moment. Open for attack, Shepard shoots a volley of disruptor rounds at the geth's armor, and eventually, the geth takes so much damage it begins to self destruct. {*_GBRRRRROUGOGOGOGOGOGO_!_*} - *TBOWOM!* The prime explodes into chunks of metal and synthetic muscle tissue.

Just after that, the large door to the left opens to reveal a wave of reinforcements.

"Here come some more!" Vega yelled. The wave consisted of a second prime accompanied by two troopers and two of those synthetic-organic drones. The team takes cover by facing the opposite direction of them.

"Don't let them get me!" demanded the stranger, dodging away from the incoming fire.

The drones make quick sharp turns to where Shepard is hiding. When one reaches close range beside the unwary commander from behind, the drone spins in rapid circles, charging up with electric charges, and ignites a massive explosion stunning the commander and ripping his kinetic barriers. *KOBOOM!*

"My shields are out!" he announced, taking plasma hits by the geth. He rolls to the next box in front of him, recharges his shields and applies omni-gel to his burns. These new drones are suiciders.

When the second drone comes up to Shepard, but instantly shutdown before it could charge up to make a blast by Tali's energy drain. The prime deploys a combat drone which was quickly taken out by Shepard. A carnage blast stuns the drone's master, giving the three of them a chance. Unable to recover from the blast, the prime self destructs after the amount of damage its taken. *TBOWOM!* The trooper units try to flank them, but they were able to see them coming. Tali overheats the geth's pulse rifle with her omni and destroys it with her arc pistol, invented by a fellow Migrant Fleet admiral (Daro'Xen). Shepard, in wanting to conserve their ammo, runs over to the last geth which activates its purple omni-blade, swings it at him, but misses. He grabs the geth's arm to pull it closer, activates his own omni-blade and slices it through the geth's neck area, killing it for good. It drops to the floor in a limp.

"Remind me not to get on your bad side, Commander." the stranger places a tiny grin to his face for complimenting Shepard, amazed at how he can kick synthetic _ass_ like this.

**. . . . . . . . . . .**

The stranger leads the group to where the other synthetic units came out from, leading to one of the small experiment rooms they were told by him. It was aligned with several L shaped consoles, and on the side to their right was a wall of those same testing chambers from earlier. And like earlier, there was a bloody mess around certain spots, probably left by the large husky lizard-like creatures tearing up the personal to shreds. The foot prints all around the floor were made by the lizard creatures and geth it seems.

"Uhgh," the stranger makes a disgust groan at the gore galore mess. "suck for these blokes. Glad I didn't go that way."

The desks had multiple active terminals and data pads. They geth that were in here must have been scrolling through all of this classified information, first left out by Cerberus. Vega picks up a data pad, which was a list of eight races known to the galaxy: Krogan, Rachni, Sycorax, Collector, Drac, Bug, Yahg, Raxacoricofallapatorius. But nothing else that would tie in anything to the mission.

At one of the active terminals before a test chamber, Tali scans it with her omni, finding something that she would be describe as 'facinating'.

"Shepard, come look at this." she calls her husband over. Vega and the stranger join in as well. The quarian works away on the console, and when its screen pops up, they see something intriguing. These aren't just testing chambers, they are organism '_cloning tanks_'.

"Cloning." Shepard observed the purpose description of the tanks on the holographic monitor. This brings back dark memories back in 2186 during the Reaper invasion, to when a darker doppelganger version of him, a clone of himself, went after him to take away his identity and the Normandy on the Citadel. This may account for how the clone of Commander Shepard came about during his recovery by Cerberus' Lazarus Project five years ago. In fact, Minuteman is indeed the facility where the clone was created. This was also where a former Cerberus operative took it away with her after a violent shootout at Lazarus Research Station occurred. This woman who went after Shepard in the end with a group of criminal mercenaries along with the clone itself, in an attempt to aid it to her own agenda.

"Looks like we found where your _diablo_ self came from." Vega told Shepard, who really wished Vega hadn't reminded him of '_him_' (the clone). Besides, it did become personal when 'it' insulted his wife during their first face-to-face encounter four years ago.

"Geth are interested in cloning?" wondered the stranger.

"Hard to say," started Shepard. "we won't be sure until we find Kendrick." he turns to the stranger. "You know were he is?"

"He was supposed to be down here somewhere." he lowered his head into his palm in mix of shame and arrogance. "God... hope we weren't to late." he refereed to the bloody stains all around the room.

"No. He's still got to be down here somewhere. We're just on the wrong train." Shepard told him.

The stranger collects himself before going back to the mission subject. "Right. Well... we shall keep moving. Like I said, Bastard's had close encounters before, no way he could give up this time."

At the moment the stranger spoke out his sentence of confidence, the doors to the other side of the room at the far corner diagonally from the other swooshes open. Emerging from it were two of those hulky reptilian brutes. One with an oversize machete and one with a giant dagger. The one with the machete had blood stains on the blade of its weapon and on it's arms and jaws.

The second creature stops, thinking it has spotted something at the corner of its eye. *_Hurmph?_* But when it turns to that direction... it sees nothing.

Across the room, the Shepard and his party takes cover from behind the L shaped consoles. They remain silent as they listen to the heavy footsteps of the reptilian brutes getting closer. Shepard and Tali scoot away to the other side of the L of their console. James and their guide do the same to theirs. The blood-faced brute was the first to appear while the other stayed behind it. The creature looks left and right, flickering its sticky fork-tongue out to 'taste' the air for any sort of scent. It does smell something, but it could just be the blood all around the place. After all, some of their kind did to their dirty jobs down here.

Thinking there's nothing down here, the blood-faced brute turns to walk out the other door where the party walked out from. The creature makes a deep bellowing growl as it makes its way to the doors, followed by the second. The party watches as they leave. When the doors close, Shepard gestures his arm to signify they were clear for... now.

Where ever Kendrick must be, he can't be far from here, so they all leave the room to the door where the creatures came out from.

**. . . . . . . . . . .**

Outside, the Normandy fires several javelin torpedoes at several defense turrets that are firing at the ship. They blow up in contact, but there are just so many of them. The Normandy won't be able to keep up with this kind of fire for so long.

**. . . . . . . . . . .**

They have been walking for a few short moments down the still darkened hallways. So far, there have been no enemies or mines, but they still keep their guard up for any. The stranger who has been with them skids his way to another door, but stops to wait for Shepard and his team to catch up to him.

"Come on, what's the hold up?"

As soon as they reach him, he is the first to enter through. All of a sudden, the sound of heavy machinery comes from the ceiling of the next corridor. A duo of pulse machine gun fire hits the stranger's torso and neck, *TEW-TEW-TEW-TEW!*

"AHGH! - URUGH! Uhhh...!" the helpless stranger is killed instantly with dying groans and lays limp on the cold floor.

The commander and his team took some cover at the corners of the doorway as more pulse fire is hear and hits the metal behind them. The machine guns hold their fire when the three were out of range. Further inside, two small adorians and a suicidal drone were looking right at the opened doorway where the stranger was shot.

"If I don't know any better, I'd say that was a turret." stated James, figuring out what it was.

The '_grad turret_' is an immobile defense installation employed by Cerberus on several of their bases, only coming out of the ceilings when a detected enemy is at range. And being under control of the geth faction, the poor stranger stood no chance against it.

"_Come out, slowly._" venomously demanded one of the small gilled adorians at Shepard's party in its deep voice.

Looking at the corpse of their guide, sizzling burn marks covered his chest and neck, Shepard loads his avenger rifle with incendiary ammo. He leaps out of cover and shoots the grad turret. *TEW-TEW-TEW!* heavy fire hits and destroys the commander's shields, but blows up into flames before more could rapidly hit and kill him.

The suicidal drone moves in, Shepard blows it up with just two shots. An adorian launches a bright lighted grenade from its pistol. *BOGOOM!* But Shepard and he team dodge the explosion. A direct shot on the forehead kills the first adorian, and a blast from Tali's arc postol hits and eliminates the second on its stomach.

It was a rather quick and simple battle. The corridor they were in now was another four way intersection. There was only one door that was to their right where its omni-lock was still green. Of all places they've been on this station, Kendrick has to be beyond there. So, the team heads out to that direction, only to be blocked by two trip mines laid on the floor. Shepard pulls out his firestorm.

*Tsvuiss!*

**. . . . . . . . . . .**

*Whack!* "Ugh!"

The sound of something heavy hitting a person in the face makes that person grunt out in pain. In a vast open and slightly darkened room with a smaller cell with glassless window ports in the middle of the emplacement, a man around his early 60s in a battle dress uniform is slammed against a corner of the cell and falls hard onto the floor, clutching the side of his waist that was stained in blood. His wrinkled face but handsome face was bruised big time. Red gashes on one of his cheeks, a bleeding nose, a bruised swollen left eye, and a fresh gash on the side of his forehead. He looks up at his captors that have imprisoned here. A geth prime with its red demonic eye lights on its head and two big genetically modified adorians, each wielding heavy plasma cannons in their arms, standing their guard with the geth unit.

The prime raises it's geth pulse cannon at the man. {You are the human spy. Alliance. Philosopher. Discovered our orders to advance to Tuchanka. Any clarification to why?}

The man coughs and wheezes before speaking. "Sorry, pal. But no Alliance militant is willing to have a discourse with some talking garbage cans!" he said weakly. He breathes again. "You'll get nothing out of me."

Just when the prime could do anything else, one of the adorian bodyguards spots Shepard and his team emerging from one of the doorway at the far end of the room with their weapons already raised. *_Ghurglurgh!_*

The second adorian and the prime take notice. The prime sticks out its arm in a 'move out' gesture, and after doing so, three automatic grad turrets appear from the ceiling. One on the center front to where Shepard's squad was, and one on both the left and right sides.

"Heads up, more turrets!" yelled Vega, he and Tali take cover behind a rail. Shepard does the same at another.

But being where they were, the middle grad turret has a clear shot at them the whole time. Its first target was Shepard. *TEW-TEW-TEW!* The rounds take away his shields, but quickly blows up when a heavy mount of fire from all three of them shoot at the mounted guns. Shepard recharges his shields.

"I need help!" the human captive cried out from his spot, though not knowing who's out there. But the three now know there is someone they are guarding. He's in that tiny cell the prime's taken cover in. Could it possibly be Kendrick? They must clear the area of hostiles and get to that cell to free him.

*_Khoraough!_* one of the bodyguard adorians fires a grenade from it's cannon at the covering party. It wanted them to split up so they can take them out one by one.

"Grenade!" Shepard shouted when the white flaring bomb reaches their proximity. Shepard jumps out and over the rail, while Tali and Vega scooted away.

*BOGOOM* the explosion shoves the two squadmates on their stomachs.

With the turret to their right firing its rapid plasma machine guns at the Commander who was taking cover behind another rail where it couldn't get him, the prime that was guarding its human victim summons a geth turret to the side where the commander wasn't protected. Shepard was completely surrounded. The first thing to worry about was the small geth turret hovering off the ground, shooting at him, before his kinetic shields break up again. He aims his avenger that was still loaded with incendiary rounds, and takes it out with no problem.

Next, he's got to deal with the grad turret above his head. He pulls out his katana, and loads it with disruptor ammo. After letting his shields recharge, he pulls out from behind the rail, skipping away from the blasts of the geth's pulse cannon. A few shots from his shotgun eliminates the grad turret. He ducks back down to recharge his shields again, knowing the turret's fire and the closest adorian's cannon shots has taken a good portion of its power away. The closest adorian and the prime that were focused on him were all he must keep his own focus on now.

Tali and Vega take advantage to take out the enemies from the other side. It was just a grad turret and the second large adorian. The turret targets Tali at the same time she targets it with her '_M-27 Scimitar_' shotgun. She and Vega take it out right away before it could do some serious damage to the two. They jump back to cover to another rail when their adorian fires it's heavy weapon at them.

Shepard's adorian stays at its spot, constantly shooting at Shepard's hiding spot along with the prime guarding the human captive, every time it sees the slightest bit of him exposed from cover. Knowing this, Shepard takes out his '_M-97 Viper_' sniper rifle and in an instant, lifts himself from cover and points it to the alien thug. But he fires only once because imediatly lifting himself up, heavy shots were already hitting him hard, but the sniper rifle's slug had _not_ missed its target.

*PTEW!* - *_BROWOUROUW!_* The slug had made impact with the adorian's left eye stalk, spilling greenish-yellow fluid and blood all over the floor and itself. It released it's weapon, collapses hard on the ground and clutches its now mutilated eye stalk that laid limp over its shoulder, flailing out with intense pain.

The other adorian was distracted by his fallen buddy, while Vega lays a carnage shot right on the adorian's side, stunning it. *_GRRRRWOUROGHLH!_* Together, the human and the quarian defeat it. It seems that even though adorians can be tough, they aren't so bright like most of their past enemies. That's because even though they were made to be more resistant to damage and to provide more combat support, their intelligence has decreased to a somewhat dim witted level. In fact, much of their race has become like this since.

The prime turns its head to the two squadmates, but an impact of Shepard's Viper slug hits its shields, forcing it to turn back to him. It summons its combat done at him this time. See this has his chance, the human captive carefully and slowly sidles along the cell's walls with his back against it, moving away from the geth to a safer location outside. While Shepard shatters the drone, the prime gets a sudden blast of a rocket on its back from Tali's drone, Chatika, before it could have the opportunity summon another drone. More rockets hit the primes shields, shattering it, but is destroyed when the prime shoots it with its pulse cannon. But by now, the prime was surrounded, and all three of them shoot it until it has taken so much damage, it detonates into an explosion. *TBOWOM!*

Sweat was already dripping from their foreheads. They were exhausted as their mission's journey started about less than an hour ago, but were all relieved when they were safe and out of danger, at least for now.

Importantly, the injured man was saved from certain execution. Shepard was the first to help him on his feet, with the man's arm over his shoulders, grunting as he did. They all noticed his bleeding gash on his side that was being held by his free hand.

"Mr. Price?" Shepard asked the man, who looks back at him with an pained glare, baring his teeth from the torture he's been through.

He wheezes again. "If you're looking for Kendrick...*grunts* you have found him."

At long last, they have found Hackett's childhood friend they've been looking for this whole time. From the corner, the adorian with its injured eye pries off the ground, but still holding the stalk with one of its hands. Hearing the creature grunting from behind, Shepard's free arm takes out his katana, and points it at the adorian's tapir-like head, shoots it, and kills it instantly when the slugs hit the creature's four blue eyes.

"Come on." the commander told Kendrick. He and Vega help escort him to a secured location in the room where his wounds will be treated.

**. . . . . . . . . . .**

Kendrick sat up on a rail while Shepard applies medi-gel to seal his cut. He remained silent for about two minutes after they helped him up on the rail. They waited patiently until he begins to finally speak without any questions asked in a smooth voice that was full of anger and hatred.

"Commander Shepard," he started sternly. "I assume Councilor Hackett sent you here to look for me."

He looked into Kendrick's agate eyes. "He said you must know something about the adorians." he started. "But now it seems like there's mush more than just them."

Kendrick nodded as his eyes looked away from him. "More than just adorians my ass." he said again. "We've been attacked by a multi-cultural species alliance. I've been tracking their actions and their agreement with this enemy alliance since the Adorian and Nakkadan war on Earth two decades ago."

"Wait, you knew about this alliance for quite some time?" a surprised James asked.

"How come nobody else has known about this alliance?" Shepard wondered next.

He lets out a heavy breath from his mouth. "You think a bunch of Systems Alliance and Citadel democrats would believe in such theories?" his voice was slowly filling up with hatred every second he spoke. "It's just as how the council disregarded your warnings about the Reapers until three years later. I've lost my daughter, Judy, to them when they stroked Earth, so congratulations to the council! This galaxy is ruled out by a bunch of delusional jackasses, Shepard!" his brows narrowed before relaxing for just a bit."Hackett may be a rebellion on humanity's place on the council board, but even he can't change the way how the universe works."

He stops to catch his breath. Shepard and his team really need to get things down to business to really find out what they are dealing with.

"Now what the hell do you of this alliance?" demanded James.

"I've only been able to determine that they call this group the '_Chimera Unity_', I've dubbed it as the CU for a personal abbreviation. Yay me." he ended the line with a sarcastic tone, but returns back to seriousness. "I haven't been able to collect richer information, however. The group is known to be very sophisticated than the black ops Cerberus. All I know about the CU is they're from somewhere in an unspecific region in the Terminus Systems. Beats my ass what they actually do, but I do know about half a dozen races are rounded up with this faction, and there's a need for concern there."

Now that they know what they are dealing with for that past two and a half days, they still need to know even the littlest details about the races they'v been encountering lately.

"Any reason why the geth would join this CU?" Shepard asked the first question.

"From my recent observations, they're used platforms. In other words, scavenged shut or shot units from the past retrofitted with technology of an unknown origin, and they're intelligence is surprisingly higher. I did managed to catch a small patch of audible data from a geth memory core from a technique I've learned from a quarian fellow of mine." he nods his head in frustration. "Primes took my omni-tool away when they git me. My secrets are now theirs."

Tali steps into the conversation. "What did the audio say?"

"It was voice of an unspecified person, ordering the CU group to move to Tuchanka after cracking the base's scientific encryption of classified Cerberus illegal practices."

"Any idea who this person was?" Shepard took his turn.

"Damn if I knew." was all Kendrick said. Nothing else after that.

Shepard stayed changed the topic about the adorians this time. "How long have the adorians played a part of the CU?"

"From what I can tell, they've been a part of this since the end of Earth's Adorian and Nakkadan invasion twenty-one years ago. Hackett lost a few of his best marines at the time and only a couple, including myself made it back." He takes a pause before continuing. "They arrived with the alien drones and brains you've probably seen already, patrolling with the geth. A rouge Salarian scientific group offered the Adorians and Nakkadans these nasties after becoming the highest bidders. I don't know exactly they joined, all I know is they are a part of this multi-species faction. End of story."

So the drones they've been encountering were genetic engineered lifeforms acquired by the adorians, but created by an illegal group of Salarian scientists. They were made specifically as suicidal bombers, but are not stupid enough to carry any sort of weapons when necessary. What they have not encountered yet were the brains. But if Kendrick saw some earlier, then they know there's some still out there. Just the though of these 'alien brains' made the three wonder what these things actually look like.

The next thing he wanted to ask was about the reptilian bipeds they've encountered earlier that almost got them killed. They weren't adorian for sure. "What do you know of the reptile brutes."

Kendrick's expression begin to have a slight disgust look on him. He nods again with a breath and resting his chin on his crossed hand, his elbows rested on his thighs. "Zorgons," he started with a disgust tone. "they're big gnarly lizard bastards of the Terminus. Originally having a homeworld, they've eventually burned it up and abandoned it. They travel all over the galaxy, looking for something to burn up for their ships. They are ravenous and relentless, but not all in all too bright." he finished explaining.

'_Zorgons_' are a race of full on spacefaring reptilian carnivores that spend much of their time journeying from place to place to fuel their primitive style ships or looking for something to eat, despite their cold-blooded anatomy. After depleting their homeworld of resources needed to fuel their starships, turning it into a vast arid world where only the toughest of native lifeforms could exist, the Zorgons left their planet and spent their entire lives searching for anything they could find to use as available ship coal. The primitive ships encountered just outside of the station were that of Zorgon origin, and they do not posses FTL drives or any sort of mass effect technology. It was eventually given to them by the time the zorgons 'reluctantly' joined the CU, something Kendrick himself doesn't know of as to 'how' and 'when' they joined.

Shepard decides to ask the last question that just occurred to him just now. "How many races does the CU have?"

Kendrick only hesitates, eyes looking down to his feet, then looks back to meet the commander's eyes. "From all I've gathered, there are approximately seven cultural members associated with the CU: Geth, Adorian, Zorgon, Krogan, and two or three unspecified races I was unable to decipher."

The three were stunned. This whole time they are being dogged by an alliance of seven enemy arts combined into one single faction. The most shocking was there were Krogan involved with the CU. But who? The Blood Pack? Some unknown shadowed clan they don't know about? It's no wonder why the CU would head to Tuchanka, the Krogan homeworld, next. Kendrick must know something they should to.

"Why would the CU have Krogan associates?" Shepard questioned again.

"This clan of Krogan call themselves '_Clan Raik_', the legendary and ferocious clan, who's strength wasn't even enough to hold up against Clan Urdnot."

But how was this possible? Clan Urdnot nearly wiped out or absorbed into Tuchanka's the top clan. At least, that was the official story. Shepard speaks again, "I though the Krogan clans were overturned by Clan Urdnot."

"Oh they were, but something or someone is giving Clan Raik a come back. But I've yet to determine what it is precisely, and there's a need to where you come along." Kendrick told Shepard.

Shepard now has a much information he need to understand what the current situation in the galaxy is. They must head to Tuchanka next. That's where they would likely strike next. But first, they must get Kendrick out of this place. He's an Alliance officer, and they can't just let him die here, especially not after the pain and torture he's gone through all his life and to now.

"We're getting you out of here." Shepard told him.

"Wait." Kendrick stopped him. "You must destroy the facility to. The CU have taken complete control of the place, and the only way to stop them is to demolish the entire station. Leave nothing of value to them behind."

"How are we going to do that?"

"Take that demolition charge." he pointed to a dark grey rectangular kit at the very corner of the room. "It's retrofitted with reprogrammed Reaper tech, enough to destroy the main power core of the station. It'll take the entire facility with it."

"Where is this main core located?" Shepard asked.

"Take that elevator over there, and it will take you straight down to it. Bring the charge to it, and everything will be blasted into hellfire." Kendrick pointed his finger to the elevator shaft before the cell he was held captive in.

Just when things could get any simpler, as Kendrick directed Shepard and his team to bring the charge down the elevator which will take them to the lowest floors of the station to where the main core is, the doors on the far opposite side swoosh open, and three geth enter in. Two standard troopers and one '_rocket trooper_'.

Before anyone could ever notice them, the rocket trooper's eye light turn red and demonic, raises its ML-77 Missile Launcher and shoots a homing rocket directly at Kendrick Price. *TEEP-TEEP! TVOOM!*

*TOBOW!* the missile blasts right at Kendrick's chest before they could even react, sending him flying right off the rail and onto the floor.

"Kendrick!" Shepard yelled at the horrible sight of the poor hurt man shot down by a massive explosion. Geth reinforcements have returned!

The three geth troopers open fire. Shepard, Tali and Vega take cover from their unexpected attackers. James pulls out and hurtles a frag grenade at one of the standard troopers. *Boom!* it stuns the synthetic, giving Vega the chance to shoot its head without worrying about it enabling its omni-shield.

Tali successfully hacks the rocket trooper's systems, making it turn against its remaining comrade. It fires a homing rocket at the trooper. *TVOOM!* - *TOBOW!* pieces of scrap metal and synthetic muscle tissue spay everywhere, disabling the geth. With no enemies to shoot at, the hacked rocket trooper's head is blown off into pieces by Shepard's Viper sniper rifle.

When it becomes quiet, Shepard hurries to the still body of Hackett's childhood friend. A very large cavity hole melts through his torso, steaming away. Not wanting his friend's friend to be forgotten, he searches his pockets for his dog tags. After retrieving them, he puts them away to bring back.

Vega and Tali were just as distraught as their commander was, but they knew they still had a job to do. "Let's find the main core, blow this place to hell, and go home." said Vega in a weary and hurt tone to his voice. And when he meant 'home', he meant the Normandy.

"This way." ordered Shepard in the same tone as Vega's. He walks to the shaft's red omni-lock, turns it green with his omni, and they all enter in when it opens. Shepard also carried the heavy charge latched onto his back.

**. . . . . . . . . . .**

Exiting out the elevator, Shepard and his team enter another darkened and small hall. Through the walls they can hear the constant hum of element zero. They must be near the main core, just behind the door at the other end. They head towards it. and when they exit out, they find themselves in a vastly open circular area.

It was a twenty story deep sector, walls surrounded by catwalks and doors here and there. Terminals on almost all sides and a gigantic pillar of beaming element zero. This is the main power core of the whole facility. They need to find somewhere to plant and set the demolition charge, blow up the reactor and destroy the facility at the same time. How hard could this be?

Tali has an idea on how to do this. "We must find a release switch for the seals to the reactor's shields. Then we can plant the charge right next to it."

"Won't planting the charge anywhere else be the same?" Vega questioned her.

"No," responded Tali, "much of the station's reactor seems protected. If we open the seals, the charge will have a higher chance of overloading and destroying the station in an instant."

"Then let's get to it." acknowledged Shepard.

There was a ladder to their left they can take to descend further down. They slid down along the ladder's rails. On the next catwalk the stood on now, was a terminal at the guardrail that could show them how to open the reactor's plating. Tali scans it with her omni.

"Okay, the release switch for the core's shields is six levels below from us. It's a long way down, but I think we can still make it."

Just after Tali speaks, the door at the end of the catwalk to the left opens, and emerging from it was a zorgon with an oversize machete and a geth unit that was on all fours, sprawled like a spider.

*_Purrrrrrghurgh!_* the zorgon growls a loud as soon as it and the small geth exit out the door. The three were startled by the sudden noise and turn to see the reptilian creature with a '_geth sapper_', a variant of a unique class of geth units called hoppers. The zorgon sees them to.

"_Pourgos smough!_" (trans: _Get them!_) the zorgon roared out at the hopper unit, pointing at Shepard and his squad. The geth's eye becomes red, and instead of leaping onto the walls as they did before, this geth dashes and launches itself at the squadmates in an attempt to pounce on one of them. It misses when they all backed up in a quick pace. The geth immediately jumps onto the stationary plate of the reactor, while the zorgon rushes over to the party with its colossal sword.

*_Grrurrh!_* it raises it high above his head and swings it back to the ground, just missing Shepard. *Clank!* the machete dents the floor Few more feet and it would've taken his arm or leg off. Shepard loads his katana with incendiary ammo. The zorgon lifts the blade off the ground, leaving a giant gash on the floor.

But just as he was about the shoot the creature, his katana suddenly over heats. The geth sapper had sabotaged it. Tali tries to hack it, but was proven to be pointless. The hopper has a _damn _firewall that prevents it from being hacked, something geth don't normally have on themselves. Each time she and Vega try to shoot it down, the hopper preforms some magnificent acrobatic hops from wall to wall like as fast as the speed of sound.

Shepard cools off his shotgun while dodging the many attacks of the zorgon. Once it was cooled off. He fires several shots at the lizard. *_Gwieeirumh!_* the zorgon whimpers a squeal of pain and stops chasing him for a moment. He fires several more at the zorgon until it was lit up like a bonfire. *_Grreeak!_* the zorgon lets out one more squeal before more and more incendiary shots hit it, and incinerating the crature into nothing but dust.

As for the geth sapper, a well placed carnage shot from Vega hits the super fast unit right off the plating of the reactor. *BOOM!* the geth explodes into a mess of white fluid entrails and synthetic muscle tissue.

"All clear, Shepard." announced Tali.

They head down the next level down the ladder by the door the zorgon and hopper came out from. They make a right turn this time rather than left to where the next ladder was. But along the way, a yellow laser beam is fired right next to Shepard's head. There were more geth sappers in here.

"There's another one!" Vega shouted st the sight of the one that fired at them clutched onto the walls like a gecko.

Two geth sappers leaped back and forth, here and there on the walls, the bottoms of the platforms above, and the outer plating of the reactor. One sapper sabotages Vega's lancer, and the other does the same on Tali's scimitar shotgun. She and her husband keep their targets focused on the sapper that sabotaged her weapon. As for the one that James is dealing with, the second sapper leaps right off the reactor and pounces right on top of Vega, knocking him and pinning him onto the ground. The geth's hooked hands grasp on to his head. One hand over his face, covering his mouth and nose, and the second holding the back of his head, pressing it in a tightened grasp. Its legs stood on either side from his body. Vega's free arms grab onto the geth's neck area, trying to keep it's laser beaming head away from him.

"MHPH!" Vega struggles to catch a breath in a hand to hand combat with the geth captor on top of him as it uncontrollably shoots yellow lasers everywhere.

Seeing his troubled teammate, Shepard shoots the geth hopper on its side, spraying white conductive fluid on Vega and falls dead on top of him. Vega shoves the dead unit right off of him and the deactivated geth falls down a long drop below off the catwalk.

Shepard pulls out his firestorm, and when the sapper hops in close enough in order for it to pounce again, he shoots out a wave of scorching flames at the geth. When the geth hopper hops on to the reactor, it suddenly drops off of it as the fire burns though its systems, killing it.

They make it to the next ladder and slide down it. Still going right, the next enemy approaching them is another zorgon, but instead of a green colorization, this zorgon had sort of greenish blue scales on it, and wielding dual daggers in both its clawed hands. And on the higher levels of the room were two laser targeting beams from '_geth sniper_' units.

*_SNARROUAAREAGH!_* the blue zorgon lets out a loud war cry at its enemies ahead.

"Watch your heads, we've got snipers up above!" Shepard announced to his two squadmates. They take cover behind stacks of crates.

"And that zorgon guy isn't gonna make things any easier!" exclaimed Vega.

The zorgon makes a hard charge at Shepard's hiding spot. *_GRRURRGH!_* The creature crashes and topples the crae stack away, while Shepard does a roll to didge the incoming hungry enemy. Plasma shots from the snipers' geth sniper rifles land near Shepard's legs.

When Shepard pulls out his katana, a sniper shot hits it off of his hands and ruining it, leaving a hole through the thing that could not be repaired.

*_Damn it!_* Shepard growled in his thoughts.

Out of incendiary clips and no shotgun to take out the zorgon, Shepard pulls out his avenger and loads it with a magazine of different rounds: '_cryo ammo_'. In addition to freezing enemies, cryo ammo is also known to weaken enemy armor as well as slowing them down.

He fires the rile's cryo rounds at the creature. *_SGREEACGH!_* the zorgon drops it's daggers, reacting and being stunned on impact of the cryo rounds. The creature is cold-blooded, which gives them the oportunity to shoot it down while it freezes up into an ice sculpture.

*Shatters!* the frozen creature shatters into nothing but pieces of ice. But they have almost forgotten about the snipers above.

*TOWM!* - *KRIACK!* a snipe shot breaks Shepard's kinetic barriers from behind. Remembering them, he takes out his viper sniper rifle and aims for them, dodging their shots by rolling away from their targeting laser beams.

*PTEW!* One shot at the geth's head blows it up and the unit collapses headless. The other sniper unit move out of their sight. They should be safe to go further down. An so they do that.

Upon reaching the next catwalk, non of them are aware there's a bomb right under the platform they're on now. As they continue going right... *KABOOM!* a tremendous explosion rips through the catwalk. It breaks off and the three of them tumble down the failing piece of the catwalk. James held on and hung on the guard rail, while Tali and Shepard slid down. He grabs his wife's wrist with one hand, and the other pulls out his omni-blade and digs it deep on the the surface. They slide until they were just nearing the edge where they would fall to their deaths. The piece of the catwalk they were hanging onto for dear life snaps off place, and falls horizontally. *KSBASH!* the piece crashes on the next catwalk level below.

The three of them were unharmed. They all get up on shaky legs, not even believing what just happened.

"They must know where we're headed." said a very shaky Tali.

"Agreed." responded Shepard. "And they're giving us everything they've got so we don't reach the seal release."

It was only a matter of time to realize his back was light weighted. The demolition charge was gone! His eyes search in all directions, looking for any sign of it. He looks down over the ledge, and spots it, laying almost half-way off another ledge two levels below them. They must get to the thing, fast.

**{WARNING! Radiation breach detected in present area!}** the station's VI feminine voice is heard. **{Activating emergency response protocols! Radiation levels rising! All personnel must evacuate from this sector immediately!}**

The bomb had not only destroyed the catwalk Shepard and his team fell from, but it has also breached a radiation containment drum that was just below it. They only have a few minutes before feeling the effects and succumbing to radiation poisoning.

"Shit!" cursed Vega. "We've gotta move!" They make their way to the next ladder down to their left.

"There should be an override to close the breach with emergency backup seals. I've seen them before!" Tali tells her squadmates.

"When have you seen them before?" said Vega.

Tali rolls her eyes in a mix of sarcasm and frustration. "My pilgrimage you bosh'tet!" she scrolled.

"Sorry." Vega quickly apologized, surprised to hear the quarian girl yell back at him like that.

"Let's go!" Shepard ordered aggressively, not wanting to stand around arguing and let the radiation kick into them.

Running to the next ladder to their right again, Tali slows down and stops by a terminal next to the wall. It was the switch for the emergency backup seals for radiation leaks. Just when they need as well to ensure the success of this mission.

"I found the switch!" she called out. "It's going to take time to by pass the security, but once I do that, the radiation leak will be compromised!"

"Be careful, Tali." Shepard tells her before departing down the ladder with James.

The two humans see the charge. Right when they begin to make a run for it... *TOWM!* a snipe shot hits right before them as a warning signal. The remaining geth sniper they hadn't taken out yet has come back to its spot.

Just when Tali was able to complete bypassing the complex Cerberus security to the switch, a loud *DUTHUMP!* is heard from behind her. She turns to see a zorgon wielding no weapons, but its face and arms covered with human blood from a victim it has torn apart and consumed, has landed from the level they just came from.

*_GRWOURREEERRRAGH!_* the zorgon roars out at her with its elbows over its head and it's clawed hands prepared to slash them at the quarian.

Tali stops the bypassing, forcing the system to restart. There's no way she could bypass the security safely, not when you have an eight hundred pound hungry lizard man standing beside you. She's got to deal with the zorgon first, but fast. She doesn't know how much time they have until her human companions succumb to the radiation.

Shepard shoots his viper at the geth sniper. While taking several hits before becoming destroyed, a shot hits Shepard's shields, eliminating them away. Right before he has the chance to recharge them, a mini laser blast hits his sides, leaving a burnt gash to the side of his armor. Another geth sapper hopper unit from the reactor's plating was attacking.

The sapper leaps from the reactor to the wall. Walls to the reactor, making it irritating for both Shepard and Vega.

Up above, the zorgon makes a charge at Tali. She rolls out of the way in time. From what Kendrick said earlier before his death was that zorgons were not too bright, meaning they aren't as intelligent as the other races of the CU, possibly excluding the genetic modified adorians. She takes out her scimitar and aims for the head of the zorgon.

*TAVOOM TAVOOM TAVOOM!* shots hit the zorgon's head, but being a muscular creature, the zorgon charges at her again while still being shot. She outsmarts it by moving out of the way again and reloads her weapon.

Still trying to shoot the rapid moving sapper, the two humans are starting to feel... dizzy and unfocused. The radiation is already starting to kick to them.

**{WARNING: Radiation levels reaching dangerously high! All personnel must evacuate from this sector immediately!}**

"_Tali, we need you to seal the leak, now!_" said Shepard through her comm.

"I'm working on it!" she responded with some frustration in hr voice, dealing with the zorgon before her. The zorgon just wasn't ready to give up, no matter how many shots it has taken. The zorgon seem to be also feeling the effects of radiation, but it's likely it would stand much longer than Tali's human companions. In both arms, she wields out her M-27 Scimitar and arc pistol, firing them both at once ant the creature.

*_GMBORUAEEAACH!_* the creature makes a pained screech as multiple shots from both weapons the quarian's holding out on both hands. The creature is forced against the guard rail as it gets shot even more so. After a clean shot at one of the zorgon's eyes from a blast of Tali's arc pistol... *_GSNRREEAACH!_* the zorgon pushes itself off the rail and drops down to a to a several story drop to its death. The two humans noticed the falling zorgon at the corner of their weakening eyes, not knowing what just happened.

The geth sapper continues springing back and forth, shooting yellow lasers at the two humans. A carnage shot misses the sapper by just a couple feet. The radiation is weakening the humans down.

"_Tali, seal the radiation leak!_" a dazed Shepard manages out over the comm.

"_Seal the leak!_" Vega joins in.

"_Tali'Shepard, now!_"

With all the chaos going on and adrenaline going through her body, she points her arc pistol at the switch and puts a round on it. *PTWEOW* the system goes into haywire mode, but in a fantastic way. The backup seals slide from the bottom of the containment drums, and the leak becomes compromised.

**{Radiation breach compromised. Radiation levels decreasing.}**

Almost at an instant, both Shepard and James start to feel more collective. After the breach was compromised, the levels of radiation have been dropping with the help of the station's VI.

Just as they think things were getting better, the sapper leaps onto Shepard. The human stays balanced when the geth latches on him like an insane intoxicated person. It grabs both sides of his head with it's wide rubbery hands and its hind legs wrapped around his waist. Shepard tries to push the geth off of him. One arm on the neck area and the other on its chest.

*PTWEOW! PTWEOW!*

Shots from an arc pistol hit the synthetic's back, killing it and letting go of Shepard, dropping dead. The two humans look to see their quarian companion join with them with her arc pistol in her hands. She had saved their lives from both the radiation and the hopper.

"We're fine." Shepard raises his hand up at her, still trying to collect himself in his recovering dazed head before she could even ask. "Thanks Tali." he thanked her eventually.

Shepard picks up the demolition charge, and they all walk over to the console to release some of the reactor's barriers. Tali activates it with her omni and taps away at the digital keyboard. The spinning barriers right before them open up to reveal much of the core inside. The released barrier was still spinning, but there was enough exposure for the charge to go right through it.

The commander turns on his comm piece. "Cortez, how's your shuttle?"

"_Good to go, Commander. Just waiting on you when ever you're ready._"

"Get the shuttle up and running and open the bay's doors. We're heading back up."

"_Aye commander._" he acknowledged back.

Shepard places the charge down, and sets it up. After a *Pweep!*, the charge begins with a 10 minute countdown before the thing blows up and takes the facility with them.

*_Sgmhourgh!_* deep bellows from zorgons and maybe even adorians are heard from the higher levels. It's time for them to leave.

"Let's go." ordered Shepard. Vega and Tali nod in agreement. They all head for the door behind them which was an elevator. The lift was already there, and they all enter it when the doors open. Shepard pushes a button that would hopefully lead them back to the hangar bay.

**. . . . . . . . . . .**

Five minutes have passed. Still no sign of Shepard, Tali or Vega in at the shuttle bay. Cortez has the shuttle's engines up and running, waiting only for his commander and his two squadmates. From inside, he hears activity going on outside, he opens the holographic monitor to check it out.

The ceiling hatch of the hangar bay is opening up. He opens the shuttle's hatch and rushes to the opening and look up. There was a large white metallic figure above he couldn't make out. He hears a noise to that direction as if something is being released. Suddenly, the shape drops down from the ceiling.

*SHABOOOM!* the oval white shape figure lands hard on the runway. To Cortez's horror, four synthetic legs with hanging wires on their 'thigh' areas sprawl out of the sides, and a long necked head with a bright white eye emerges from the middle. It was a colossus!

"Shit!" Cortez turns on his comm in hopes of making contact with the commander. "Shepard, we've got a colossus in here! Hurry up, now!" he yelled aloud.

"_Keep it away from the shuttle and don't let it shoot anywhere near it!_" Shepard demanded an order to his shuttle pilot who sounded like he was out of breath.

"Aye sir!" Cortez responded with panic in his voice. He keeps himself collected to not have a heart attack.

The colossus's eye turns red and the eye chip piece goes down over it. Plasma energy builds up in its face. The platings on its legs extend outward and its front limbs close together, readying itself to fire a siege pulse. Its locked its target on the shuttle pilot. He runs out of the Kodiak, and the geth giant's head follows him. *PTOW!* - *TABOOM!* the shockwave of the pulse's explosion knocks Cortez off his heals. Both him and the shuttle were unharmed, but how long will he hold up with this before the commander gets back?

The colossus prepares to fire again, but instead of a blue siege pulse, red and electric charges build in its cannons this time. Followed by a bright orange light, a red scorching laser beam streams out from the colossus's head cannons under its eye at Cortez. *VIREEEVROOM!* the laser follows Cortez for a good three seconds before it disintegrates.

From the far right corner, the doors swish open. Shepard, Tali and James have made it back on time. Cortez and the colossi notices their arrival.

{*_BZI-TIZZIIR-IBZIZBRRR!_*} the colossus grumbles out. It stands up in a firing posture again. Everyone noticed.

"Get down!" Shepard ordered everybody, just when a siege pulse is fired at them. *TABOOM!* They've all become separated from each other. The colossus targets Shepard first. This time with a laser beam attack. Red charges build up in its face. *VIREEEVROOM!* Shepard makes a quick roll away from the burning beam, but he still felt the intense heat coming out from it on his bare skin on his face. Luckily these 'new' colossi, like the one encountered at Galaxina's crash site, don't have any mass accelerator machine guns built to these things like the ones fought before. It seems to only have two ways of attacking. But Shepard may have just jinxed himself with that thought.

The colossus rears up on its hindlimbs, its head just a few feet away from the ceiling, and brings its front limbs crashing back against the ground, creating an immense shockwave around the geth. *TOWOOMGH!* all four people flew into the air and landing hard on their sides.

Like the geth sappers, the colossus has a firewall built to it, so it can not be hacked by Tali.

Being spit apart from each other, all three squadmates put as much fire power as they could possible could on the colossus. Shepard was in front of it with his avenger, Tali and Vega from behind with both the scimitar shotgun and lancer assault rifle, destroying the geth's shields and were now halfway done with its armor. The moment its armor was halfway gone, the colossus huddles back fully onto the ground. Like the unit fought on Haestrom five years ago, this one has a self-repair protocol, rapidly regenerating its shields. Shepard and his teammates see this as their chance to escape. God know how much time they have before the demolition charge demolishes the place without warning.

"Everyone, to the shuttle!" Shepard orders everybody through their comms. They all run to the open hatch left behind by Cortez. As soon as all four people were inside, Cortez lifts the Kodiak off the ground.

"Hold on to your butts!" Cortez orders out.

The colossus retracts itself from repairing. It turn around to the the shuttle coming right at its face.

*DACLANK!* the colossus is knocked down by the incoming shuttle. The Kodiak regains steadiness after the impact. At full speed, the Kodiak flies out of the open doors Cortez has opened earlier, and the shuttles makes it out of the station's hangar bay and back toward the Normandy, free from any turrets or enemy ships.

Down in the main reactor chamber, the demolition charge ticks with only second remaining.

_7... 6... 5... 4... 3... 2... 1_

*TOUWM!* the charge explodes a destructive nuclear blast of reaper atoms overloads the eezo reactor.

The colossus that has stood back up with its eye back to white notices the shock wave and turns to the direction to where's coming from, only to be met by a caustic blast wave of element zero.

*KORVRRROOOOOOUUUMHHH!* the entire station blows into a miniature supernova-like explosion of element zero, leaving nothing behind but chunks of debris in the skies which would eventually enter alien planet's atmosphere and either burn up or make impact in a rain of fire.

Minuteman Station, one of the two facilities involved with Shepard's resurrection of the Lazarus Project, and the birth place of the Normandy SR-2 is gone for good. The mission may have come with the heavy cost of Kendrick Price's life, but in the end, everything turns out to be a for sure success.

**. . . . . . . . . . .**

Elsewhere in the galaxy, in an almost pitch black room with only the dim moon light penetrating through the wide windows, the human lord stood before the guardrail of a large deep pit with faint neon light coming out of it.

On the bottom of the ten meter deep pit were two luminescent cepholopod-like creatures standing and moving on three black tentacles that constantly rotate in a circle. Their abdomens consisted a constant rotating orb encased in a stringy-shaped rib cage that rotates with it, and just above it was a tiny thorax that was armed with two joints just as long as a person's arm, each wielding two long tentacles that dangle and draged along the ground. It's tiny head was crested shaped, ending the top with a pointed closed pincer maw. Neon bioluminescent colors glowed along the rib cage, maws, and tiny shoulders. One creature was lit with a mix of ocean blue and intense cyan colors, and the other's neon colors were all pink. They all made eerie but soothing bellows as they lazily wonder along the bottom of the pit. These odd looking creatures are called '_shrill_'.

The human lord calmly watches them from above with his arms crossed to himself and a leg atop on the guardrail. From behind, a geth prime walks over to him, stopping just a few feet away from him.

{Primos-Lord.} it started in a deep guttering tone.

"Status report." the human lord, '_Lord Primos_', ordered sternly.

{Data encryption cracks at Minuteman were successful. Subject: "Organism Cloning" acquired. Extraction of data, secured.}

"Bring it up." he ordered the geth again, which activates its purple omni a holographic image of the cloning tanks, as well as several blue prints about them show up just above the shrill pit. Observing almost every detail there was, Primos rests a pondering arm on his other and his finger to his chin. "What's the status of the troops at Minuteman?" he asked the prime.

{98% of all forces are deceased and shut down. 2% have made it out with no further damage.}

"_Shepard._" he mumbled to himself. The holographic images disappear. "Send in extra reinforcements to Tuchanka. I want a Krogan who's genes are modified exclusively for blood rage combat. Commander Shepard will for sure be down there. And if the girl is down there to, bring her to me alive." he gave the prime a new order.

{Affirmative, Primos-Lord.} the prime acknowledged. With that, the giant red synthetic turns back to where it headed from. Lord Primos stared back at the two shrill below.

*_Shepard._* he thought to himself. *_You may have similarities to 'him', but that ain't mean he is your true father, Boy. Not by a long shot._* His thoughts were dark against Shepard, while watching his two shrill at what looked like hours on end to him. The creatures making faint eerie whines that can be heard from the top.

*_Owouwow. Owouwowouw._*


End file.
